Scotland and Luxembourg
Today on Sky someone said: 'The problem is Scotland doesn't understand how Parliament works.'
Really? Has that been the problem all along? Is that why we Scots are so bolshy? It's that we just don't get it.
You would think after centuries of national and local government, we'd have sussed out how things work. Maybe the person who was talking meant to say: Scottish people have worked out how government works and don't necessarily like it.
My own view is that our problem is that we are over-governed: we have people in the EU who make decisions about us. Then people in the UK. Then others in Scotland's parliament. And then local councils.
You'll have to forgive me for saying this but I'm not sure we're any better off for having 4 different levels of management making decisions on our behalf. Because that's what politicians are these days: management. Admin. They're not under any obligation to come up with ideas and make things better - heaven knows, they don't - they just need to keep things moving along.
I don't want to see any of the real admin people lose their jobs - you know who I mean, the folk that actually do the work day to day: arranging the school buses, collecting our council tax, fixing the traffic lights, etc. After all, government is a massive employer right across the western world.
But we need to consider that what we've in fact done by taking decision-making away from the people is to infantilise the voters.
There are huge issues in Scotland that we have never even got near yet, despite having our own Scottish parliament for a long time now.
First of all, there's land - who owns it, how it's used. How we can make land ownership fairer. We can't make Scotland a fairer society without making land ownership more equitable.
Then there are our cities: what do we do about the massive council estates that were obsolete when they were built and some of which are still around, a shameful curse on the people forced to live there? And when we set out to regenerate parts of our cities, what kind of planning do we do to make sure people have shops, leisure facilities, bus services, etc? If we don't have these from the start, we're just recreating the schemes we had to begin with.
How about our rural areas? Do we go on expecting our population to live in these areas? If they are to live there, what are we doing about housing them? Will we have schools for their kids? Transport for those who can't run cars? How's their wifi provision going to be? How will we entice key workers like doctors and nurses and teachers to move - and stay - there?
What about the well-being of our people? Do we plan to just let drug addiction go on claiming lives while we footer about on the edges of the drug epidemic? There's an epidemic of opiate addiction coming from the USA. Are we ready for it?
And there are our young people themselves. We educate them well. Bring them up well. Give them high expectations. And then all these well-educated young people can do is leave Scotland because there's no work. Do we have plans to deal with that?
I doubt if anyone has the answer to these questions. My thoughts have been prompted by the contempt shown to the state of Luxembourg this week by UK politicians and journalists. It is, as usual, a contempt born of pure ignorance.
Luxembourg is a tiny country. It's an equal member of the EU. It sits at the cross roads of western Europe. It makes loads of money from banking and investment. Its population is drawn from every country in Europe and north America. It is rich.
The population is educated from the age of 6 in French, German and Luxembourgish. Children are bilingual from an early age. As they get older (at 11 or 12), they learn English too. It's understood that Luxembourg is too small to offer its young people a full education, so it prepares them to go and study in other countries. Most of them don't come back after their studies.
That isn't the plan I would want for our young people, but I understand the thinking behind it.
What Scotland needs is a plan, some ideas - a bit of imagination that takes us beyond the confines of Little England. If the plan included learning languages that would be an extra delight.
Really? Has that been the problem all along? Is that why we Scots are so bolshy? It's that we just don't get it.
You would think after centuries of national and local government, we'd have sussed out how things work. Maybe the person who was talking meant to say: Scottish people have worked out how government works and don't necessarily like it.
My own view is that our problem is that we are over-governed: we have people in the EU who make decisions about us. Then people in the UK. Then others in Scotland's parliament. And then local councils.
You'll have to forgive me for saying this but I'm not sure we're any better off for having 4 different levels of management making decisions on our behalf. Because that's what politicians are these days: management. Admin. They're not under any obligation to come up with ideas and make things better - heaven knows, they don't - they just need to keep things moving along.
I don't want to see any of the real admin people lose their jobs - you know who I mean, the folk that actually do the work day to day: arranging the school buses, collecting our council tax, fixing the traffic lights, etc. After all, government is a massive employer right across the western world.
But we need to consider that what we've in fact done by taking decision-making away from the people is to infantilise the voters.
There are huge issues in Scotland that we have never even got near yet, despite having our own Scottish parliament for a long time now.
First of all, there's land - who owns it, how it's used. How we can make land ownership fairer. We can't make Scotland a fairer society without making land ownership more equitable.
Then there are our cities: what do we do about the massive council estates that were obsolete when they were built and some of which are still around, a shameful curse on the people forced to live there? And when we set out to regenerate parts of our cities, what kind of planning do we do to make sure people have shops, leisure facilities, bus services, etc? If we don't have these from the start, we're just recreating the schemes we had to begin with.
How about our rural areas? Do we go on expecting our population to live in these areas? If they are to live there, what are we doing about housing them? Will we have schools for their kids? Transport for those who can't run cars? How's their wifi provision going to be? How will we entice key workers like doctors and nurses and teachers to move - and stay - there?
What about the well-being of our people? Do we plan to just let drug addiction go on claiming lives while we footer about on the edges of the drug epidemic? There's an epidemic of opiate addiction coming from the USA. Are we ready for it?
And there are our young people themselves. We educate them well. Bring them up well. Give them high expectations. And then all these well-educated young people can do is leave Scotland because there's no work. Do we have plans to deal with that?
I doubt if anyone has the answer to these questions. My thoughts have been prompted by the contempt shown to the state of Luxembourg this week by UK politicians and journalists. It is, as usual, a contempt born of pure ignorance.
Luxembourg is a tiny country. It's an equal member of the EU. It sits at the cross roads of western Europe. It makes loads of money from banking and investment. Its population is drawn from every country in Europe and north America. It is rich.
The population is educated from the age of 6 in French, German and Luxembourgish. Children are bilingual from an early age. As they get older (at 11 or 12), they learn English too. It's understood that Luxembourg is too small to offer its young people a full education, so it prepares them to go and study in other countries. Most of them don't come back after their studies.
That isn't the plan I would want for our young people, but I understand the thinking behind it.
What Scotland needs is a plan, some ideas - a bit of imagination that takes us beyond the confines of Little England. If the plan included learning languages that would be an extra delight.
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