The Scottish Atheist

So, Jim Murphy’s attempt to suck up to “values voters” (and let’s hope that expression never becomes something of substance in Scottish Politics) has exploded in his face spectacularly.

I’m appalled at the attempt, and quite happy with the outcome, but I was having a think about this last night. It’s not actually what I would want to ask Jim Murphy about, if I got the chance. I’m intrugued as to why he thought it would go any differently, but honestly… there’s a more serious question at stake here.

See, I know Jim Murphy – not as a friend, but I went to University at the same time as him (and Ed Byrne too, but that’s another story), and he was a pretty prominent fixture on campus. He was almost universally known as “Megaphone Murphy”, due to the permanent attachment of either a megaphone or a placard. Always involved in organising protests against the Tories and their latest horror policy.

The thing I would love to know, more than anything about atheism or secular politics is this…

Why, when he was a campaigner and protester in his student days, is he happy to serve in a government which is happy to use riot police as shock troops to crush protests?

Why, when he saw protest and activism as a path into politics, and to eventually to rise to be secretary of state for Scotland, is he happy to serve in a government which labels any protester as a “terrorist”?

Why, when he was always to be heard chanting and leading protest about “the people”, was he the man who championed an act through parliament which removed more freedoms and rights from “the people” than almost any other bit of legislation in History?

Seriously Jim, how do you sleep at night? Don’t you cry into your pillow thinking about how completely and utterly you have betrayed the younger you? (not to mention the rest of us)

Back in 1992, when I left University, I didn’t think for one second that I would like to see Megaphone Murphy again – but I would rather that than see what Politician Murphy has become.

In my day job, I’m involved in educational IT – computer systems used in the classroom etc. I was aware of sparklebox.co.uk, although not a user (not being a teacher, I don’t really have a need for their stuff).

the problem is that sparkelbox has just been banned by the government, with educational authorities being advised to block the site until it can be fully checked out… because it is run by a convicted paedophile. That’s unpleasant enough, but when you look at the website itself… there it is, loud and proud in the top left corner – a shiny big glowing ichthus.

So, set up a site full of nice shiny bright things for kids, and proclaim the faith… just don’t mention being a pedo… classy! Where I live just now, there are plenty of businesses who feel the need to plaster an ichthus all over their building/stationary… and it’s actually something that will stop me from buying from them. It’s not that I particularly care about the religion of people I buy stuff and services from.

That’s their business.

On the other hand, when someone goes out of their way to say “buy from me, because I am a christian (or jew, or muslim, or…)” that’s a bit of a turn off right there.

The thing is – even when I was a christian, I didn’t like this – as a believer, this smacks of the money changers in the temple. Reducing your faith to a marketing tool just seems wrong.

The morals of the music industry are sickening, which makes it hard to take Feargal Sharkey’s Crocodile Tears a bit much to stomach.

Firstly, they rip off artists more than any teenager downloading music ever could, with one sided contracts, stealing royalties etc.

Secondly, they have ushered in ever more draconian laws which will restrict our freedoms online, just so that they don’t have to come up with sales models that suit the age. Even prominent Artists don’t agree that piracy is the problem

There will always be freeloaders who just want something for nothing – but Illegal downloading truly thrived for one reason and one reason only – the copyright industry treated normal consumers like criminals rather than provide a legal way to download music and video that could be freely used on any of our devices.

They are so desperate to control us that they have made illegal downloads attractive. I buy my music from Amazon now because they give me unrestricted MP3 files without DRM, that I can play in the house, in the car, on my Zen… and I would love to do the same with TV shows, but that industry is still desperate to stop me from using content I have paid for as I wish.

If you can avoid the usual anti-scottish rants in the comments that is…

it’s been a while since I posted, largely because I have been quite content with the world. Sure, there’s a lot of stuff there to annoy a Scottish Atheist if you look hard enough, but for a while at least, things are ticking along nicely.

Labour has been self destructing nicely, eating itself to death, culminating in them losing Glasgow East to the SNP – good days indeed. The SNP government have been getting on with governing (and doing a darn good job of it) and drawing praise from the Scottish business community to boot.

But this one caught my eye today – I was following the hoo-hah of the Olympics banning the ‘other’ UK flags – the Saltire, St George’s Cross and the Welsh Dragon.. it’s because of Tibet, naturally, but annoying nonetheless. I don’t really have the stomach for waving a Union Jack. So, on the forum, someone linked in the Fair Flags campaign..

The basic upshot of the campaign is that lots of food is labelled as ‘English’, then has a Union Jack added, rather than the English flag – which is the St George’s Cross.

Now this is one I can really get behind – it’s a natural justice thing. I remember as a schoolkid being taught how to make up a Union Jack from the Saltire, St George’s Cross, and the St Patrick’s Cross of Ireland. While we have a Union, we have to remember that we are the United Kingdoms plural, not the United Kingdom singular.

It seems only natural that just the same way a Scotsman would wave a Saltire in support of his team, an Englishman would wave the St George’s cross – and you would expect that just the same way butter from Dumfries and Galloway or cheese from Ayrshire was labelled as local produce with a Saltire, there would be no problem with cider from Somerset, or Bacon from Yorkshire carrying the English flag – loud and proud.

Tesco, on the other hand, thinks otherwise – they claim that this is because Scots and Welsh would not buy produce with an English flag.. well maybe during the world cup qualifiers, but seriously? this is ridiculous. It’s like authorities falling over themselves to avoid offending muslims when the vast majority of muslims just don’t care. A completely non scientific straw poll of opinions here says that this is just wrong – English strawberries in particular are highlighted as being extra juicy: the climate further south is much better for them apparently.

This is basically like the West Lothian question all over again – and in the same way, it’s not a difficult problem. The West Lothian question, of course, is whether Scottish MPs (elected to the UK parliament) should be able to vote on issues affecting only England.. and the answer is obviously no – what moral right does one population have to inflict policies on another population that didn’t vote for them.

And that’s, unfortunately, where the Fair Flags campaign turns  a bit ugly – England is currently enduring a Labour government (well, really, we are all enduring a labour government) that they did not vote for. It’s unfair, and a lot of English people are unhappy about it. I would be too… and I was, when it was happening to us. England voted in Thatcher’s government, Scotland didn’t want her, and she set about dismantling and destroying our industry as punishment. We had the Poll tax inflicted on us two years before England as a trial – because she knew fine well it wouldn’t make a difference: Scotland’s votes didn’t matter to her.

The commentors trot out The Barnett Formula (where Scotland is funded at a higher rate than England), but oddly enough, fail to consider the income to the treasury *FROM* Scotland (hint – Scotland puts in a lot more than it gets out, even when you don’t consider THE OIL. Remember? The Oil off Scotland’s coast?)

All this does is underline that Scotland and England have wildly different electorates – and the ‘Union’ is like the front end of a pantomime horse stitched onto the back end of a pantomime cow. It’s fooling nobody – and it’s time to bring the whole sorry thing to an end.

Oh, and in the meantime, please let Tesco know that Real Scots are not so petty as to avoid fruit and veg because it comes from England.

I saw that someone died in a house fire last night – and then realised that I knew him.

Denis McKenna – I worked with him in my first real IT job, at the Blood Transfusion Service based in Law Hospital. Denis was one of the developers there – and had a wicked sense of humour.

He suffered from  a degenerative condition which meant that he used a wheelchair and only worked three days a week (much to the annoyance of the management!). It looks very much like he was trapped in the house, and couldn’t get out.

in coding we often have to make little variables for general purposes – looping through some records, or just keeping a count of something. We used to code in Clipper S87 – a language designed for working with dbase databases, and there were a huge number of reserved words (that you can’t use for variable names, because the system handles them in a special way), which included “count”.

We usually abbreviated it to “cnt” – not Denis. He always abbreviated it to “cunt” – again, much to the annoyance of the management.

he was a real character – and the world is a slightly less interesting place today because he’s no longer here.