Choose your friends carefully...

This is the logo of Russia Today, a news station available on line and on satellite. It doesn't say so but this is a channel set up and financed by the Russian government to present us with a world view from a Russian angle. 

RT is backing Scotland's bid for independence. Good of them, eh? But a wise viewer would watch with just a hint of suspicion and ask why Scottish independence would matter to Russia. 

You no doubt remember that Russia recently took over a huge swathe of Ukrainian territory in the Crimea. The invasion was described by the Russian government as a rebellion by local Ukrainians declaring their independence. In the last few weeks, rebel Ukrainians have staged further uprisings in the east of Ukraine - the bit nearest Russia. The rebels (or Russians?) are carefully controlling the news from that part of the world but pictures and reports have emerged of rebels dressed remarkably like Russian soldiers 'defending' territory from the Ukrainian army. 

You have to go back a wee bit to work out Russia's agenda here. It's about access. And it's about Vladimir Putin trying to restore Russia's position as a world power.

Way back before the USSR was created, the Russian empire had access in the east to the Pacific ocean and in the north west to the Atlantic ocean but wanted an ice-free seaport further south. On the Black Sea. With access to the Mediterranean. Losing Ukraine when it became independent was a blow to Russia. That was before Putin's time and it's no surprise Putin, the hard man, has taken steps to recover some of this strategic land mass. 

Ukraine is westward-looking: there's an item in today's papers about how Ukraine plans to join the EU by 2020. Not good news for Russia: a lot of EU countries are NATO members and NATO is the only agency large enough to take action to stop Russia's land-grab in Ukraine - and wherever else in the former USSR Putin fancies taking back. 

And Russia's agenda in Scotland? The UK is a member of NATO and will back whatever NATO proposes. Anything that undermines the UK - like losing quite a bit of its home territory to independence - can only be seen as good to the Russian government. So suddenly Scotland is on Putin's Christmas card list. 

That said, some of the Max Kaiser reports on Scottish independence on RT are interesting because they tell us things we don't hear on the laughably biased UK TV and in the UK press. But we should watch them warily, just as we should watch the Chinese channel CCTV, Fox News and Sky News with suspicion. I wish I could say some of the satellite stations give an alternative world view that's worth watching but so far as I can see the Japanese channel and the French channel are no more than extended travel documentaries for their countries. 

Al-Jazeera is maybe the only satellite station giving anything like a balanced view of the world. It's always a give-away when other broadcasters defer to al-Jazeera's views, as they do over the Middle East. 

It's almost over!

The referendum I mean. I'm not sure how much more tosh my blood pressure can take.

I’ve been reading a column by Ed Smith in the New Statesman. Have a look for yourself.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/09/ed-smith-alex-salmond-may-get-laughs-would-you-trust-him-crisis

It’s about Alex Salmond and it is downright nasty. 

Now I’m not a member of the SNP, nor a fan of Alex Salmond, nor a Scottish nationalist (well, not any more than the Better Together people, who could be described as nationalists of the British persuasion). But I accept that the SNP gained a large majority in the Scottish Parliament, formed a government and began to implement their party’s manifesto: item one, and it has been since the party was formed, was to call a referendum on Scottish independence. And they’ve done it: delivered their manifesto. Maybe we’re so unused to politicians doing what they’ve said they would do, we’re surprised by this.

So the SNP are in charge at Holyrood. That’s how elections work. It’s not how the referendum is working though: the referendum appeals to more than SNP members and Alex Salmond. And surely it’s time intelligent people like Ed Smith realised that.

I don’t take to the Scots being described by Ed Smith as showing ‘whining bitterness’. And Ed Smith’s description of Alex Salmond is couched in such ‘unparliamentary’ language, I can only suppose he’s forgotten the man is the legitimately elected First Minister of Scotland. Ed Smith calls him ‘a hectoring bar-room bully’, writes of his ‘cocksure irreverence’ and ’lack of gravitas’ and claims he has damaged Scotland’s standing in the rest of the UK, though he doesn’t say how.

It’s not all bad: Ed Smith concedes Alex Salmond has  a ‘certain native cunning, the ability to whip up populist fervour and a willingness (apparently unchecked by conscience) to say almost anything to serve the here and now.’ Some of this is intended to be an insult, of course, but it also shows Ed Smith’s ignorance of the Scottish situation.

He concludes that, ‘(i)f he wins, Scotland will be saddled with a man who is utterly ill-equipped for statesmanship.’ Though he doesn’t say why.

I don’t expect Alex Salmond, win or lose the referendum, will be around for long. Possibly the SNP won’t be around for long in government either if they do win the referendum, unless before the first general election they can develop their manifesto with some strategic thinking and position the SNP somewhere on the Social Democrat spectrum, which is where a lot of Scottish people want to be.

The News Statesman is a Labour-leaning magazine and thus more or less bound to support the union. It is obviously not the Coalition’s best buddy but I don’t think even David Cameron has merited a full-page diatribe like this. I don’t like the way Alex Salmond behaves in Holyrood and I don’t like the way David Cameron behaves in Westminster either. I certainly don’t like the Tory agenda of running down the state sector, cutting support to the poorest and claiming to do it to reduce the ‘deficit’ in the UK budget, which it clearly is not. I don't like the way the SNP government is handling education right now and I have serious doubts about their transport and fisheries policies. I expect attacks on politicians from writers and journalists but maybe we could expect them to be on these subjects and not about the man.