Falling upon hard times

By John Knox
Political reporter, BBC Scotland

The Fraser of Allander Institute warned on the affects of a recession

"Now what I want is facts."

So says the square-fingered school master in the opening scene of Dickens' Hard Times.

And the facts we got this week certainly spoke of hard times.

Unemployment is at 4.7% or 126,000 and rising sharply.

The Fraser of Allander Institute warned that 72,600 jobs could go in the next year.

Scotland, it says, will feel the worst and earliest effects of the coming recession because of its reliance on the broken financial system.

MSPs held a full and angry debate on the economy on Wednesday afternoon.

It resulted in an alliance between the SNP and the Tartan Tories, uniting to condemn the "mismanagement" of the UK economy by Gordon Brown.

Labour responded by arguing that things would be even worse if we didn't cling to UK nurse.

The Liberal Democrats ploughed their own lonely furrow with a plea for income tax cuts.

And the Greens? Well the Greens called for the abandonment of the old goal of unsustainable economic growth.

The Greens were astonished, and delighted, the next day to find their motion calling for £100m a year for an energy efficiency programme supported by both the SNP and the Labour Party.

Public gallery

Sarah Boyack, Labour's lone voice on the environment, was also delighted to win similar support for her plan to give tax cuts or other incentives to householders who install insulation or micro-renewables in their homes.

At first minister's question time, the Labour leader Iain Gray tackled Alex Salmond on jobs and the school building programme.

The wild-haired head teacher from Glenrothes Lindsay Roy MP watched from the public gallery.

"In Glenrothes," said Iain Gray, "Alex Salmond said Yes We Can but the people said No You Won't."

He said 1,500 schools in England were being rebuilt or refurbished, yet not one new school had been commissioned by the SNP.

"Let me give Mr Gray a few facts," said the square-fingered Mr Salmond.

"Since May 2007, 11 school projects have been signed off, 55 new schools planned, with a total value of £1bn, 55,000 pupils will benefit."

He promised that 250 schools would eventually be rebuilt or refurbished by the SNP, without the waste of Labour's PPPs, the public private partnerships.

But the SNP's alternative, the Scottish Futures Trust, came in for a severe battering during a windy debate on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Swinney insisted the Scottish Futures Trust was moving ahead

Labour's David Whitton said the trust was "in crisis", it had created a long jam in construction projects, just at a time when construction jobs were needed most.

But the finance secretary John Swinney insisted the SFT was on target.

He even announced two pilot projects, one in the south-east of Scotland and another in the north.

They will bring together councils, health boards and private partners to build schools and health centres on a "non-profiting distributing" basis.

Earlier, the health secretary Nicola Sturgeon was given a thorough medical examination in a Labour led debate on funding for the health service.

Labour's Cathy Jamieson said the NHS had been given the smallest increase in its budget since devolution and real cuts in services were on the way.

But Ms Sturgeon said health had maintained its share of the total Scottish budget at 33%.

She said Labour, under Jack McConnell were going to "cut its cloth" to pay for increases in education.

It was the usual virtuoso performance from Ms Sturgeon, who has won this year's Politician of the Year Award.

Other prizes went to the Chancellor Alistair Darling as the best Scot at Westminster and to John Park as the MSP to watch.

Sir Sean Connery won the international Scot award.

Ms Sturgeon won two awards at Politician of the Year awards

Two interesting snippets of news came out of question time.

The Conservative leader Annabel Goldie extracted an admission from Mr Salmond that the council tax freeze was "probably not enough" to counter the hard times.

But he felt forced to add that it was better than the 40% to 60% rises we had seen in the council tax under the Conservatives and Labour.

Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat leader, asked about the "damning" report from the social work inspectors on the state of Aberdeen's child protection service.

Mr Salmond said it was "totally unacceptable" that children were being put at risk but since the preliminary findings were made known in June, five extra social workers had been taken on and Aberdeen was getting some assistance towards solving its budget crisis.

On Remembrance Day, Tuesday, parliamentary life came to a halt at 11 o'clock for 2 minutes.

A war-time style announcement came over the public address system, committees stopped and people stood still in offices and lobbies.

Outside, peace campaigners , wearing white poppies, distributed leaflets against nuclear weapons and the war in Iraq.

Choir town

Again on Thursday, the "Women in Black" like suffragettes were outside the gates calling for an end to "militarism, arms sales, war and violence."

Other angel voices were heard in the chamber, right at the end of business on Thursday evening.

Wendy Alexander and Annabel Goldie were singing the praises of the Paisley Music Festival.

There are apparently 12 choirs in Paisley and they've got together to organise a festival every October which ranges from classical music to folk and jazz.

And the purpose of Ms Alexander's debate? To promote Paisley as Scotland's "Choir Town" and to highlight the economic benefits of the festival.

We may be heading for hard times, but Paisley is determined to sing its way through them. And that's a fact.