There is one particularly worrying mindset among some fellow SNP members which has repeatedly recurred across social media, particularly Facebook, in response to my observations. It is what might be seen as the apotheosis of political corporatism.

I take these comments from my last post to illustrate the point, though the same meme can be found in hundreds of comments this last couple of days on many sites and tweets:

“Perhaps it would have been better just to accept you didn’t get the job.”

and

“If the guy can’t even handle a very polite rejection for a job without blogging about it for 3 days, then he shouldn’t be near politics. Period.”

And most tellingly:

“This is the retail equivalent of going for a job interview at ALDI, being unsuccessful and then deciding to set fire to the store on the wayout.”

There is something very worrying – and I really do mean very worrying – about people who believe that a corporation hiring staff is the correct comparator for somebody seeking to enter a democratic process. I was not asking corporate managers acting on behalf of shareholders to give me a position as an employee.

A political party is not a company. It is not owned by shareholders. Its members are supposed to be, within the party, on an equal, democratic footing. I was seeking to put my view of the correct direction for the SNP before the members of the party in a constituency, where I had spoken and been questioned at four hustings meetings. The members in the constituency could then take a democratic vote on whether they thought I was the best candidate or not. I was prevented from remaining in that democratic process and my name was removed from the ballot, due to a decision at HQ. Had I been selected I would have wanted to put my vision of an independent Scotland – consistent with the programme of the SNP – before the electorate as a whole, and conduct a most vigorous campaign and debate.

The idea that this exercise in democracy is a job interview at Aldi clearly is inappropriate. The people who put that idea forward have no feeling for liberty or democracy. For them, seats at Westminster are jobs for the boys in the gift of party managers, and the ordinary members have no more say in it than the staff do in the policy of Aldi. I find some of these attitudes genuinely worrying. I was concerned that the SNP contains a very strong democratic centralist tendency, which we members must guard against. I now see I was wrong. I should have deleted the word democratic from that sentence.

A few points:

1) Contrary to Margaret Curran, it was entirely plain to me that the Westminster deal “loyalty test” in the SNP vetting process related entirely to a possible deal with Labour. There was no discussion of any possible deal with the Tories.
Personally I am just as opposed to the Red Tories as the Blue Tories and their extremely similar austerity agendas.

2) It has been widely circulated that the reason for my disqualification from the approved candidates’ list was articles written on this blog or speeches made during the Yes campaign. At no stage during either the vetting or appeal process was there any mention of this blog or of anything else I had ever said or written. So if that was indeed the reason, they failed to address it with me.

3) The same is true with regard to those claiming the circumstance of my divorce ten years ago was the reason. There was no mention at all of my personal life at any stage.

4) I have been given no other explanation in writing or orally other than an email with the single sentence:

“While you showed excellent qualities, you could not give a full commitment on group discipline issues, and for that reason the Panel could not recommend approval.”

So to those saying they wish to hear both sides of the story; so do I. I have told you all I know. I am I think entitled to the assumption that the reason was the one stated, rather than the myriad alternative reasons people are putting so much effort into promoting.

I gather the Scottish newspapers are going big on the story tomorrow. The Independence Live interview recording is available here and gives the opportunity for a much more reasoned and expansive view of developments.
[it has since been put up on Youtube and I have been able to embed here]

http://new.livestream.com/IndependenceLive/CraigMurray

But it is worth reiterating the point that I only went public on this issue after I was phoned at 8am Saturday morning by The Scotsman (or their sister paper Scotland on Sunday). The Scotsman had already been alerted to the story and been briefed in some detail from within the SNP, in a manner plainly hostile to me. Exactly the same had happened, with the same Scotsman journalist, when I first started to pursue my candidacy a few weeks ago. I therefore decided to get out what had happened from my perspective, using social media.

I had written on 26 December an email to the SNP suggesting we develop an agreed media line to get out the fact I had been rejected as a candidate in a way that did as little mutual harm as possible. I had contacted Derek Bateman with a view to breaking this through his programme. I never received a reply to that email to the SNP. Instead someone in the SNP briefed The Scotsman against me.

That the corporate media would use this episode to damage both me and the SNP was entirely predictable. But it was not me who called the media in, and it is not in my nature to kow-tow humbly when I am being attacked.

UPDATE

I am adding into the text a comment I made below in response to people who refuse to take on board simple facts which they do not like.

1) I did not talk to the Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday. They phoned me at 8am and they had already been briefed and recounted to me a great many facts down the phone that could only have come from within the SNP. They did not say “Oh, Hi Craig, any news?”.

2) I said nothing to the Scotsman other than to confirm it was true I had been refused at assessment, and that I was very disappointed. I said nothing else.

3) It was not the first time someone had briefed the Scotsman on this and they had contacted me. It happened a few weeks ago too. The motive was very plain – to get the Scotsman to print disobliging things about me being a vicious cybernat (which worked- eejits keep happily quoting the same out of context phrase the Scotsman used in these comment threads, and throughout the blogosphere).

Doing a live interview on Independence Live in 10 minutes and answering questions from viewers.
http://new.livestream.com/IndependenceLive

Upset and depressed after being barred from the SNP candidates’ register by the hierarchy for “lack of commitment to group discipline”.

I was asked at assessment whether, as part of a Westminster deal with another party, I would agree to vote for the bedroom tax if instructed by the Party. I replied “No.” End of SNP political career. Problem is, I really believed we were building a different kind of politics in Scotland. I also knew that a simple lie would get me in, but I couldn’t bring myself to utter it.

I had very, very strong support from ordinary members to be the candidate in Falkirk or in Airdrie, and had 17 requests to stand from other constituencies, several from branch meetings. I wonder what the SNP new membership will think of this?

I had intended to keep this a private grief if possible, but I was phoned at 8am this morning by the Scotsman, who had plainly been briefed in some detail from within the party hierarchy. I was also phoned by the Sunday Herald, who were coming from a different direction, having picked up a whiff of Tammany Hall about the SNP selection process in several constituencies.

In the interests of full openness, these are the complete communications I have been sent regarding my rejection as a candidate:

Craig
Thanks for coming along to the Assessment Day on 6 December and apologies for not being able to get back to you before now.
I’m afraid to say that the Panel did not feel able to recommend you for approval as a potential parliamentary candidate at this time. While you showed excellent qualities, you could not give a full commitment on group discipline issues, and for that reason the Panel could not recommend approval.
There is scope to appeal this decision, and if you wish to do so then contact my colleague Susan Ruddick – (email address deleted) – who will be able to put that process in train.
Best wishes
Ian
Ian McCann
Corporate Governance and Compliance Manager
Scottish National Party

Then:

Dear Craig,
Thank you for attending the Appeals Panel yesterday.
Unfortunately your Appeal was not upheld.
I wish you luck in your future endeavours.
Sue

That is it. I have asked for more detail of why I was refused, but been given none. All I have is “you could not give a full commitment on group discipline issues”, and the only question to which I gave an answer that could possibly be interpreted that way, was the one above on the bedroom tax. There was, incidentally, no corresponding question designed to test the loyalty of right wing people.

I should note that I was astonished by the hostility of the appeals board, chaired by Ian Hudghton MEP and flanked by two MSPs. They could not have been more personally unfriendly towards me if I were Jim Murphy: their demeanour was bullying. They were less pleasant to me than was Jack Straw or anybody in the Foreign Office when they were sacking me for blowing the whistle on extraordinary rendition and torture. It was a really weird exercise in which these highly taxpayer paid professional politicians attempted to twist every word I said to find an excuse to disqualify me. I found it a truly unpleasant experience.

My analysis is that those in the SNP who make a fat living out of it are terrified the energy of the Yes campaign may come to threaten their comfy position. I think there is an important debate here on how the 80% of the SNP who are new members can affect its existing gatekeeping structures. No new members were involved in deciding if I was a fit candidate, and the 1500 new members in each of Falkirk and Airdrie were denied any chance to vote for me as their preferred candidate.

This also makes a complete nonsense of the SNP’s much publicised move at the Perth conference to allow non-members to stand as SNP candidates in an “opening out” to the wider Yes campaign.

I do worry that the idea of Whitehall ministerial limousines in a coalition is of more interest to some in the SNP than independence. I also am really concerned that the SNP has become, like other parties, a source of lots of taxpayer-funded careers. A significant proportion of those that do pass the vetting process are Special Advisers or work in SNP MP’s, MSP’s or MEP’s offices. The SNP is developing its own “political class” which is the opposite of the citizen activism of the Yes campaign. It became clear to me that a lot of SNP insider thought around the selection process is not about furthering independence, but about jobs for the boys (and girls).

Every candidate for selection is allowed a 350 word statement including cv to be given to members with their ballot paper. This is the 350 word statement which I had submitted to HQ for distribution to SNP members in Falkirk, prior to my disqualification. It has never been distributed, but I would like every SNP member to read it. If you know one, send it to them:

My aim is to achieve Independence.  The Smith Commission shows we will never be given the control of our own economic resources required to achieve our aims of social justice, or to stimulate the economy, within the Union. 

I think we have to avoid the trap of managerialism – of being just another political party but a little more competent and fair.  We should maintain a firm thrust towards the goal of national freedom.

I will vote with the SNP group, but my voice within the party will be against any coalition agreement with Labour or Tories.

I want to defeat Labour, not sustain them. I want to end the Union, not to run it.

Within the SNP we must guard against success leading us to develop our own careerists. Professional politicians in Westminster have become a parasitic class with interchangeable beliefs, out for themselves. There are too many of them – Special Advisers, research assistants etc. The number of politicians paid for by the taxpayer has quadrupled in 30 years.

The best MPs contribute from a wide variety of life experience.

I want the dynamic citizen activism we saw in the Yes campaign to lead to a new kind of politics in Scotland. Bubbling up from ordinary folk. And I want that energy from the people to defeat the forces of the mainstream media and the unionists here in the coming election.

Together, we can do it.

If selected as our candidate I will immediately move my family home to Falkirk and begin campaigning. Once elected MP, my home will become my constituency office and open to all, and no MP will work harder for his constituents. No Scottish MP will have lower expenses. I shall regularly attend the Commons and speak in debate.

Craig Murray
Writer, Human Rights Activist.
Chairman, Atholl Energy Ltd
Rector, Dundee University 2007-10
Honorary Research Fellow, University of Lancaster School of Law 2006-10
British Ambassador Uzbekistan 2002-4
HM Diplomatic Service 1984-2005
MA 1st Class Hons Modern History

Declined LVO, OBE and CVO as a Scottish nationalist and republican

Maybe that statement is what really got me disqualified?

It turns out that the CIA has realised for years that drone attacks are of very limited utility. Like so many of the injustices of the “War on Terror”, they are in fact a driver for armed hatred of the West, not least because they kill more civilians than targets.

But of course, the “war on terror” is very much about boosting the standing of politicians who are “fighting terror” on behalf of their citizens, and about boosting the ever-inflating powers – and budgets – of the security services. SO counterproductive measures are, paradoxically, the most attractive to those whose aim is not to obtain peace, but rather to maintain the concentration of power and finance consequent upon an eternal state of phoney war.

The incredible disappearing Jim Murphy. At 18.50 on the front (home) page of the Guardian, top left, appeared a story by Libby Brooks entitled “Scottish Labour Leader Criticised Over Proposal to end Football Alcohol Ban”. I clicked and read the story briefly, in which domestic abuse organisations and the police were criticising Murphy for proposing to allow alcohol at football again. I saw the article a minute after it went up, and as yet there were no comments.

I then returned to the home page to see what else was in the paper, and my eye was caught by the normally welcome absence of Jim Murphy. Within three minutes of being put on the front page, the story had been taken off. By clicking back I could get to it again; it was still there. But there was no link to it any more on the home page and no way to find it if you did not know it was there.

There are two points here. One is The Guardian, which with the BBC has been telling us for a week solid that Jim Murphy is the Messiah, could not have a story revealing what a plonker Murphy is, up for three minutes, without burying it.

The second point is Murphy’s dangerous populism. He has already announced he would repeal the Scottish Parliament’s anti-sectarian measures. He now wants to reintroduce alcohol fuelling of football rivalries. It seems that Murphy has correctly identified the level of core Labour support and is pandering to it. The efforts to rectify some of the more glaring social problems in Scotland have been politically brave in the past few years. For a nasty lowest common denominator rabble rouser like Murphy to start trying to drum up Neanderthal appeal, is deeply unedifying.

Peter Mandelson, Danny Alexander and Kenneth Clarke have been appointed to head the pro-EU campaign in the run-up to the probable referendum. Did Nigel Farage make the selection? (I have always had a regard for Ken Clarke, but his willingness to defend vicious Tory cuts is changing my mind fast).

This is not a tactical break, this is flu. Twice this year already. Aaagh!

The Independent have Jack Straw well and truly cornered:

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Craig Murray, who was sacked as UK ambassador to Uzbekistan in 2004 after alleging that Britain used intelligence obtained by the CIA under torture, said he attended a meeting at the Foreign Office where he was told that “it was not illegal for us to use intelligence from torture as long as we did not carry out the torture ourselves” and claimed this policy came directly from Mr Straw.

The former Foreign Secretary said: “At all times I was scrupulous in seeking to carry out my duties in accordance with the law. I hope to be able to say more about this at an appropriate stage in the future.”

I hope so too, and I hope that the appropriate time is either at the Old Bailey or The Hague.

Straw has climbed down a bit from his days of power and glory, when he told the House of Commons, immediately after sacking me, that there was no such thing as the CIA extraordinary rendition programme and its existence was “Mr Murray’s opinion.” He no longer claims it did not exist and he no longer claims I am a fantasist. He now merely claims he was not breaking the law.

His claim of respect for the law is a bit dubious in the light of Sir Michael Wood’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry. Wood said that as Foreign Office Legal Adviser, he and his elite team of in-house FCO international lawyers unanimously advised Straw the invasion of Iraq would be an illegal war of aggression. Straw’s response? He wrote to the Attorney General requesting that Sir Michael be dismissed and replaced. And forced Goldsmith to troop out to Washington and get alternative advice from Bush’s nutjob Republican neo-con lawyers.

Jack Straw did not have any desire to act legally. He had a desire to be able to mount a legal defence of his illegal actions. That is a different thing.

Should any of us live to see the publication of the Chilcot Report, this will doubtless be clear, though probably as a footnote to page 862 of Annex VII. That is how the Westminster establishment works.

The SNP has weighed in on the side of the angels:

Revelations by the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan of the UK’s knowledge and acceptance of torture must see those involved answer questions on what happened.

In an article in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Murray reveals that he attended a meeting at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office where he was told that “it was not illegal for us to use intelligence from torture as long as we did not carry out the torture ourselves” and revealed that this policy came directly from Jack Straw.

Mr Murray also reveals that “there was a deliberate policy of not writing down anything… because there should not be evidence of the policy.”

Craig Murray also states that “for the past year the British Ambassador in Washington and his staff have regularly been lobbying the US authorities not to reveal facts about the UK’s involvement in the CIA torture programme” and claims that is one of the reasons the full Senate report has not been published.

The SNP has called for a full judicial inquiry to be set up as a matter of urgency to get to get to the truth of who knew what and when.

Commenting, SNP Westminster Leader Angus Robertson MP said:

“Mr Murray’s revelation of the attitude taken by then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw only adds to the urgency with which we need a full judicial inquiry.

“Craig Murray’s article lifts the lid on the UK’s role in the human rights abuses that the US Senate has reported on and there can be no more attempts to avoid answering the tough questions that have been posed.

“Clearly answers are needed just as much from the politicians who led us at the time as from those directly involved in what was going on. The need for an independent judicial inquiry is now clear for all to see.

“It is also long past time that the findings of the Chilcot inquiry were published and there can be no more delays to that report being made public.

“There needs to be a full judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of the UK’s involvement in rendition flights that passed through UK territory and the UK’s wider knowledge of the abuses that the Senate has revealed.”

Craig Murray’s revelations can be viewed on page 25 of today’s Mail on Sunday

But with Malcolm Rifkind being promoted everywhere by the BBC to push his cover-up, it remains an uphill struggle.

I put Straw, Blair and Blears in the dock for torture. My article on the leader page of the Mail on Sunday.

The far right CIA funded Henry Jackson Society, Vice President Jim Murphy, officially supports torture. Here is the odious Douglas Murray putting the Henry Jackson Society view on This Week.

I have searched everywhere I can, and in a week where every politician in the World has expressed his views on torture, I can find nothing from CIA poster boy Jim Murphy. He is a founder member of the Henry Jackson Society, so I think it is fair to presume he supports their official view as shown in this video.

The BBC had a choice of two Murrays. The could have chosen Douglas Murray, full time paid propagandist for the USA. Or they could have chosen Craig Murray, ex-Ambassador sacked by Labour for blowing the whistle on CIA torture ten years ago, and now proved to have been right. Guess which the BBC chose.

Listening to the BBC and Sky, and reading The Guardian, all on the subject of whether the UK establishment knew about CIA torture or not, the realisation dawned on me that I had imagined my entire life story and in fact I had never actually existed. For a little while it was like being in a particularly scary Japanese film.

Then fortunately, I started to look through the comments threads and discovered that even though every journalist in the mainstream media does not know that I blew the whistle on all this a decade ago, the general public do apparently know of me and know a very great deal more than the so-called journalists. So it seems I do exist after all.

That is really quite a relief, because I was about to cancel my walk to Sandy Bell’s on the grounds that if I was merely a metaphysical concept, I probably would not be able to drink anyway.

My RT interview today giving eyewitness evidence that Jack Straw is lying about his personal complicity in torture. Straw has been allowed to lie repeatedly about his on UK media for the past 24 hours, as have other British establishment figures. Despite the fact that it is infamous that I was sacked by Straw for blowing the whistle on CIA torture, and the undeniable documentary evidence of this, not one UK media outlet has allowed me to contradict Straw. I have contacted every major British news outlet and been blanked by every one.

‘CIA will continue torture with help of mediators’ – UK’s former envoy to Uzbekistan

Labour have called on Nicola Sturgeon to block me as a SNP candidate. Giggle. She is not known for taking the advice of war criminals. I have also been attacked by the Scotsman.

It is quite a feat by the Scotsman, on the day when CIA torture is the headline news of the entire world, that the Scotsman runs a story about me that leaves out the fact I was sacked as Ambassador for being the first whistleblower on CIA torture and extraordinary rendition. Particularly given that I pointed that out to them when they called me.

Can I just say how pleasant it is to be vindicated ten years after being sacked by Jack Straw for opposing the torture and extraordinary rendition programme – which Blair and Straw claimed I was inventing.

Off to hustings meeting in Larbert so considered post on this tomorrow.

The fall in the oil price is a bad thing in that it makes hydrocarbons more attractive against renewables, although on the timescale that investment decisions in energy production are taken, it would have to be sustained a great deal longer to have a major impact.

Contrary to popular myth, the fall has not been caused by Saudi Arabia cranking up production on behalf of the United States to damage Russia. Hydrocarbon supply has increased, while the increase in demand has been slower than expected. The United States itself has been responsible for a significant part of the production increase, though it is from a number of diverse sources. What Saudi Arabia has not done is play the role of market regulator by cutting back production to stabilise the price.

If you wish to see a target of Saudi inaction, it is the United States, not Russia. The single largest increase in hydrocarbon production in recent years has come through fracking in the United States. Fracking is high cost, and the fracking frenzy in the USA was built on a mound of corporate debt. Nobody would have initiated a fracking investment with oil under $70 a barrel. A few deep sea operations aside, no producers are hurt more than US frackers by the current oil price. The Saudis are enjoying watching the Americans fall on their arse.

As for Russia, I have explained repeatedly that it is a developing country economy dependent on raw commodity export. I am willing to wager that we will find that in 2014 the total GDP of Russia fell below that of Spain. Oil is not the only commodity price that is struggling. Putin has complacently presided over an astonishingly undiversified economy of which the key markers are raw commodity export, very narrow distribution of wealth from that raw commodity export, capital flight of 80% of the profit from that raw commodity export, and a consequent crippling investment shortage. The pretend sanctions “imposed” on Russia are responsible for almost none of the economic pain Russia is now suffering. Russia’s lack of value-adding industrial base and capital incontinence is coming home to roost.

I can’t finish this survey of oil politics without noting the appalling decision of the United Kingdom to open a naval base in Bahrain to service aircraft carriers. This crazed neo-imperial venture by a struggling economy is shameful. An aircraft carrier has no defensive purpose. Its entire rationale is the projection of airpower into foreign countries. That, after the total disaster of Middle East policy in the last decade, the United Kingdom is still seeking to project air power in the Middle East is horrifying. Furthermore, when we are supposedly trying to reach an agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme, it is incredibly provocative to open a major forward western
base almost within eyesight of Iran. Lastly, of course, Bahrain has a brutal dictatorial regime that has been murdering and torturing its majority Shia population for decades, with both open and covert British support. Britain’s callous action is a kick in the teeth for anybody who believes that human rights has a role to play in foreign policy.

The sooner we break up the United Kingdom the better. It really is a force for evil in the world.

Labour voters are switching straight to Tory as second preference and Tory straight to Labour in Scottish local government by-elections held under the STV system. These are not opinion polls, they are real elections.

I was shown results and transfer sheets yesterday in the margin of the SNP vetting assessment of potential candidates which I was attending. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to copy down the figures, but the pattern was clear.

For those unfamiliar with single transferable vote, you mark the ballot paper 1,2,3 in the order you prefer the candidates. What is now becoming clear is that Labour voters tend to put the Tories at 2, and Tories put Labour as 2. I have been arguing for years that there are no significant policy differences between Labour and Tory – it is a fake choice. I will never forget at the count in Clackmannan the Labour and Tory councillors and their wives all celebrating together, all looking well-heeled and arrogant and entitled, impossible to tell apart.

That the few remaining Labour voters put the Tories as second preference, instead of the Greens, SNP or Liberal Democrat, shows that the core Labour support base is largely Blairite. Which explains why the ultra-Blairite Jim Murphy, scion of the far right Henry Jackson Society, is set to become Labour Party leader in Scotland. It is also interesting that Tory voters are happy to give second preferences to Labour, recognising that Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Tess Jowell and Harriet Harman – every one a millionaire – are doughty protectors of the rich and the established order.

I haven’t been able to find a website that records local byelection results including the transfers – some results are listed on politicalbetting.com but only give the final result after all transfers. If anyone can find the data online I would be grateful. I should love to see an analysis from James Kelly on this one.

Tony Blair names Henry Kissinger as his role model. Honestly, not kidding. It is of course literally true, as they were both responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands through neo-colonial war. What a pity he forgot to mention it when he stood for leadership of the Labour Party. On the other hand, it is the sort of thing Jim Murphy of the Henry Jackson Society is quite open about, and it doesn’t seem to hurt his career prospects either.

There is a great campaign song from the 1890’s, of which the chorus goes

The Land! The Land!
‘Twas God who made the Land
The Land! The Land!
The ground on which we stand
Why should we be beggars
With the Ballot in our hand?
God gave the Land to the People!

That key question – why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand? – was the fundamental driver of the Yes campaign in the Scottish referendum. The answer is, of course, the beggary remains because our corporate masters are enabled to buy off a small but significant minority of the less poor and then brainwash or terrify enough others through their control of mass communication. But so many people are now wondering how on earth we have beggary in a land of so many billionaires, that the question is refusing to go away.

The song above was the anthem of Henry George’s land movement, and it has resonance today. I found land ownership the most passionate of subjects in the referendum campaign. It was as strongly felt in urban communities of Dundee as in the Highlands. There is an excellent article on the subject by George Monbiot today. It ought to be as important in London as in Scotland. The extreme wealth of the Westminster and other London inherited estates ought not be tolerated in a modern society.

I too applaud the Scottish government’s courage in tackling the issue. I wish, however, they had been a bit more bold. That business rate exemption was ever given to sporting estates, by both Tories and Labour, is an abomination. Of course the rate must be imposed. The truth is, much of the Highlands historically supported a greater population than it does now, and there is much land unused that can produce root crops and cattle. The aid for crofting communities acquiring land is also welcome, but should be backed by firm compulsion.

The proposals to end primogeniture may break up large estates over time, but I confess to being not greatly excited by progress measured in half centuries. The major answer should lie in two well understood taxes: inheritance tax and land value tax. I would favour 20% inheritance tax on all estate value above 500,000, 50% on all value above 1 million and 80% on all value above 5 million, with no exemptions or gifting and beneficial ownership ruthlessly traced.

On Land Value Tax, I am particularly attracted by a residency test. LVT should be quadrupled for non-residents, with residence defined as where you pay your income tax. In an independent Scotland, that would sort out a great deal of the problem pretty fast.

Simply repealing the Inclosure Acts would perhaps have difficult ramifications, where the original beneficiaries’ estates have sold land on to become eventually, for example, individual residential plots. But revisiting the Inclosure Acts is a weapon we should not forego when looking at problems like the Buccleuch or Grosvenor Estates. Though for the major aristocratic estates I would favour straightforward nationalisation.

The Establishment, Conservative, Labour and Liberal, have re-introduced the appalling notion of the “undeserving poor”. It is time for action against the undeserving rich.