Fishing!

Many years ago I spent three intensive days honing my skills in ‘getting my own way’. Or perhaps more properly ‘getting my employer’s way’.

And I will let you into the two secrets I learnt on that negotiating course.

First, one should always phrase any offer one makes in negotiation as “if you will ‘x’, then I will ‘y’”. Always put what they must do first.

The second secret has the aide memoire ‘LIMit’. That is a list you prepare of what you want from a negotiation. The categories are ‘like’, ‘intend’ and ‘must’ and they are headings for what you want.

Oh and the third secret on this list of two?– don’t tell your opponents what your strategy is.

You now have a better understanding of how we should be approaching the European fishing negotiations than Ross Finnie, the Labour-Liberal Scottish Executive’s Fishing Minister.

Because it has been astonishing to watch the man who is supposed to be our industry’s champion give up even before the negotiations. A bit of the beligerence of the Danish fishing Minister, or the Spanish or the Irish, would do nicely.

So when I meet fishing industry leaders shortly, I expect to come away with a a simple message for Ross Finnie.

Our ‘LIMit’ does not include closure of the North Sea for white fishing.

Money, money, money

In the Scots Parliament we are as ‘online’ as it is possible to get. And a large number of people email us their thoughts.

In the stream of ‘advice’ that reaches me from all over the world, the way we spend Scotland’s money comes well up the list.

The cost of the Parliament’s new building has been in the spotlight again.

When a new office block for some of Westminster’s MPs cost over £600 million – and generated little comment – to some people at least, the £300 million or so for a whole Parliament might not seem like a lot.

But Donald Dewar promised us the building for £40 million. And signed the contract even before our MSPs were elected.

So it is a matter of regret that one group of 19 MSPs have steadfastly refused to nominate anyone to the group trying to sort out Donald’s mess. The Tories seem content, as they always seem to be, to criticise the idea of a Scottish Parliament without being prepared to work on the real problems associated with change.

My colleagues in the SNP and I would have located the new building on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill, used existing facilities and saved considerable time and money.

At the end of the day, we shall have a tangible asset for our money, and that’s something.

But as my recent investigations into the government’s advertising budget have shown, money can be spent for no visible benefit.

A Parliamentary question by me has led to the government publishing an analysis of their ‘foolsspeed’ campaign. This has going on for over three years, has cost a seven figure sum in advertising, and is designed to stop us speeding.

So you might expect the government to trumpet a reduction in speeding convictions. No! Their research tells us that attitudes have changed – to a limited extent.

And revealingly, the research tells us that campaigns which seek to change attitudes are rarely successful. So that’s another few million down the drain.

But what else could we do to stop speeding?

Well, with a typical speeding fine rather similar to the parking fine rate in Edinburgh, the Justice system is hardly sending out a message that speeding is a critical problem.

So why not just double the speeding fines? That wouldn’t cost millions and might even make some money.

The answer is that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power. The Road Traffic Act remains firmly in the hands of London and no matter how high a priority it might be for us, we have to wait for them to act – or choose not to.

Email Fraud

When you receive an email, do you know who it is from? Yes of course – because it says so in the ‘from’ field.

As MSP Fiona Hyslop has found out, not necessarily so.

The Internet allows anyone to send an email with anybody’s email address in the ‘from’ field.

And someone in Panama has been sending out marketing emails using Fiona’s email address.

How so? Well when we publish our email addresses on the Web it opens the door to this kind of abuse.

The price of openness.