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In 2008, Welsh Labour suffered a disastrous performance in the local elections. In the Wake of the 10p tax debacle the party took a massive blow with the loss of 122 council seats, losing control of Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Torfaen councils, whilst losing outright control of Flintshire and Wrexham.

Labour had, said Rhodri Morgan, leader of the party in Wales at the time, taken a “belting”.

Fast forward to today and as voters go the polls on Thursday, things could not be more different, with mounting expectations, as outlined in new research published today.

Commissioned by the Wales Governance Centre and undertaken by YouGov, the “State of the Nation 2012” report finds Labour across Wales should be anticipating a good evening.

Asked about voting intentions in local elections, Labour were on 48% (an increase from the 21% Welsh Labour polled in 2008); the Conservatives, despite a disastrous few weeks, remain steady on 17% (1 point up from their 2008 vote share); Plaid Cymru are down 3 points to 14%; whilst the Liberal Democrats continue to be seen as the punch bag for the coalition in Westminster, polling just 7%, a 6 point drop in support from 2008.

Significantly, however, some 15% of respondents indicated an intention to vote for an independent.

In terms of voting intentions for the General Elections, Labour across Wales find themselves on 50% (up 14 points from May 2010); the Conservatives have fallen 3 points to 23%; Plaid are up 1 point to 12%; whilst the Liberal Democrats again have taken a pasting with support across Wales at just 7%, a fall of 13 points from where they were in 2010.

It’s a similar picture for voting intentions for the Assembly with Labour enjoying comfortable leads in both the constituency and regional list ballots.

• Vote 2012: A tale of two Labour parties 18 Apr 2012

• Vote 2012: Welsh local council elections preview 7 Apr 2012

• Preview 2012 – Wales 29 Dec 2011

Welsh Labour leader and first minister, Carwyn Jones, remains the most popular leader in Wales, with Leanne Wood coming second, a sign of the progress she has made since being elected Plaid leader; Welsh Conservative leader, Andrew RT Davies, however, languishes behind both his Lib Dem opposite number, Kristy Williams, and David Cameron.

Indeed, Davies is the only one of the party leaders in Wales who’s own supporters disliked him more than they liked him.

Arguing that the results point to “sweeping gains” being made by Labour on Thursday, Professor Richard Wyn Jones, director of the Wales Governance Centre, explained:

“These findings are great news for Welsh Labour and suggest that they are on course to make sweeping gains in this week’s local elections. Whatever their problems elsewhere in Britain, and despite a rocky period in recent years, Wales retains its status as a Labour bastion.”

Meanwhile, as the Silk Commission looking at future powers for the Assembly and Welsh government prepares this autumn to publish its report on how to improve the financial accountability of the devolved institutions in Cardiff, the poll findings point to their being strong support for the notion of devolution as well as for at least some powers to be devolved over taxation.

Asked how Wales should be governed, just 16% argued it should be without any form of devolved government; 5% felt the Assembly should have fewer powers; 31% said it would be best to leave things as they are; 30% argued the Assembly and government should have more powers; whilst just 10% favour the idea of outright independence.

Fifty one per cent, meanwhile, said they felt the Assembly should have most influence over how Wales is run compared with 26% who believed it should be Westminster.

Asked about whether and how many powers should be devolved to Cardiff over taxation, 24% agreed it should be responsible for all of them; 31% support the idea of some taxation powers being devolved; whilst 34% felt the Assembly should have no powers over taxation at all.

Meanwhile, despite Carwyn Jones’s call for a referendum on devolving taxation powers, 44% of respondents felt the issue should be dealt with by politicians, with 41% believing a referendum would be required.

Sixty two per cent of respondents disagreed with the idea that if Scotland were to become an independent country so should Wales, a demonstration of the struggle Plaid Cymru will have to re-assert its raison d’etre, not least after Leanne Wood’s assertion she felt an independent Wales would be achieved in her lifetime.

It is likely to re-ignite the debate once again over how the party gets its independence message across more clearly after its director of policy, the former AM, Nerys Evans, warned Plaid needed a new strategy on the issue.

Reacting to the findings, Professor Roger Scully of the Governance Centre noted:

“Some of the most interesting findings of this survey concern public attitudes to future referendums on devolution.

“There is clear majority endorsement of the idea that referendums should be required for major constitutional changes, like abolition of the Monarchy, Welsh independence, or even the devolution of all taxation powers. But most people do not support having referendums for smaller-scale changes, including those that would give the National Assembly limited tax powers.

“Those insisting that any further steps in devolution would require referendums might want to bear in mind that the public don’t seem to agree with them.”

Laurence Janta-Lipinski, of YouGov, added:

“In many ways, the Welsh provide a balancing voice to the more extreme opinions on devolution aired in both Scotland and England. Support for the Union appears strong across Britain however, limiting those in support of independence to a vocal minority.”

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Rebekah Delsol is program officer for Ethnic Profiling at the Open Society Justice Initiative. Michael Shiner is Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Co-Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology. Both are members of StopWatch, a campaign for fair and accountable policing.

Recent events on both sides of the Atlantic have opened up a space for a meaningful, honest discussion about police racism.

This week, George Zimmerman formally pleaded not guilty to murdering the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was charged with the murder in Florida after a delay of some six weeks, amid a wave of international outrage.

A few days later in Britain, the Crown Prosecution Service reversed its original decision not to charge a Metropolitan police officer with racially aggravated offences after he was recorded racially abusing a 21 year old black suspect, Mauro Demetrio, during last summer’s riots.

Following a string of further complaints, there are now 12 separate cases of alleged Met racism under investigation, involving 26 police officers and one civilian staff member. Just last week, a fresh racism allegation was made to the police complaints watchdog involving a black fireman who claims he was abused and tasered by the Met while trying to assist them.

The events of the last few weeks have transformed the terms of the debate about police racism in Britain. Since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry branded the Metropolitan Police Service and other services as ‘institutionally racist’ some 13 years ago, the primary police response has been one of collective denial.

Officers have widely dismissed Macpherson’s report as an attack on the integrity of the service, whilst attributing the failings it highlighted to incompetence rather than racism, and reassuring themselves that disparities in stop and search can be explained away by the demographic make-up of the ‘available population’.

In a single stroke, PC Alex MacFarlane’s well publicised use of the N-word appears to have swept away these defences, at least temporarily. Faced with a smoking gun, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met commissioner, has vowed to drive racists out of the service.

Accusations of police racism are, of course, nothing new. Black communities have had to deal with the tragic paradox of being over-policed and under-protected for years. As the debate has moved beyond the normal denials, however, the lid has been lifted on what has, until now, been part of the private lives of black people – ‘that conversation’, in which parents brief their children on how to handle the police. As one parent reported:

‘I’m a black father, of course I had tried to prepare my son for police. I talked about my experiences but nothing could prepare him for the visceral humiliation, a man in uniform screaming in his face. He was never the same again.’

Official statistics tell us that black people are stopped and searched by the police at seven times the rate of whites, and that this disproportionality has been getting worse rather than better in our main urban areas since the publication of the Lawrence Inquiry. Last year more than one in four stop searches carried out by the MPS were of children below the age of 18 years and, on average, a child below the age of 10 was stopped and searched every week.

• The hidden legacy of the Stephen Lawrence case 15 January 2012

• Stephen Lawrence: The legacy that lives on, the hope, the dreams of a better future 4 January 2012

• What will Cameron do to end the racism of the young Conservatives? 23 November 2011

• Action must be taken whenever racism rears its ugly head – including in sport 12 November 2011

• All eyes on Barcelona as racism rears its ugly head again 3 May 2011

Behind the statistics, this means young people being treated with suspicion on the way home from church, whilst socialising with friends or in their front yard when they have popped out to lock-up their bike. Some come to accept routine police interference as a fact of life, while others stop going out or change their dress or hairstyle so as not to attract police attention. Some get angry, others get depressed. As a mother from Wandsworth told us:

‘I saw my bright sparky 16-year old turn into a young man with no hope. The police see him as a black criminal in a hoodie no matter what he does. I feel like [the police] screwed up my little boy.’

Before deciding that stop and search is the price to be paid for community safety, we should remember that fewer than one in ten stop searches result in arrest. The Home Office’s own research estimates that stop and search reduces the number of ‘disruptable’ crimes by 0.2 per cent.

While Section 60 searches under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 have become central to the police response to knife crime, fewer than one in two hundred searches result in an arrest for possession of an offensive weapon or dangerous instrument. Unsurprisingly, a Home Office evaluation concluded that the government’s Tackling Knives and Serious Youth Violence Action Programme has had no measurable impact on levels of knife crime.

While stop and search in general has little, if any, measurable benefit in terms of crime reduction and community safety, the damage it does is tangible. It is this that needs to be discussed. Police tactics are put under the spotlight by a new play, Stop Search, premiering at the Broadway Theatre, Catford from April 27th to May 26th. Drawing on interviews with police officers, parents and those on the receiving end of stop and search, the plays lays bare the policy’s human costs, asking those of us who are not on the sharp end of policing whether we are happy with what is being done in our name. Are we?

Stop Search is on at the Broadway Theatre, Catford, London, April 27th to May 26th. For more information visit www.stopsearch.ac.uk.

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West Lothian Question

The West Lothian question reared its head again with a new report (pdf) for IPPR by Professor Jim Gallagher of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Outlining his preferred solution in the Telegraph, Gallagher argued:

“The best answer lies in changes to parliamentary processes for English legislation. This takes us down the arcane byways of Commons procedure: but it can be done, and would oblige a government to pay heed to English opinion.

“A variant of the plans Ken Clarke drew up for the Conservative Party in 2008 is entirely practicable. The trick is to set up a route through the Commons that involves English (or for some things maybe English and Welsh) committees at key points.

“All MPs would retain the same status, but certain committees could reflect only English views.”

Scotland

SNP NATO u-turn?

As speculation grew over a potential u-turn in SNP policy towards an independent Scotland joining NATO, party members seemed to suggest they would do so, though only on the condition they would not have to be associated with nuclear weapons.

The stance drew derision from one time Scottish Labour MP, defence secretary and Secretary General of NATO, Lord Robertson, who declared:

“They can’t join with their own conditions attached. NATO membership is not a pick-and-mix menu from a sweetie shop.

“This is deadly serious global security we are talking about and the SNP would have to accept that the nuclear defence strategy of NATO is part of that.”

Meanwhile Phillips O’Brien, Director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies at the University of Glasgow wrote in the Scotsman:

“Reports that SNP party leaders are considering abandoning their policy of withdrawing from NATO in the run up to the 2014 independence referendum should not be a surprise, as it is only within NATO that the SNP’s defence policies can work militarily and politically.”

A spokesman for the SNP dismissed the debate as “mere speculation”.

• The legacy of collusion: Sam Marshall and Northern Ireland’s dirty war Beatrix Campbell

• Starkey courts controversy (again) by comparing Alex Salmond to Hitler Ed Jacobs

• Third of UUP MLAs could leave as MEP lays into “faceless, gutless” bully boys Ed Jacobs

• Vote 2012: A tale of two Labour parties Ed Jacobs

• Elected mayors offer “greater visibility, accountability and coordinative leadership” Kevin Meagher

• Can the SNP u-turn on NATO without u-turning on nuclear weapons as well? Ed Jacobs

Scottish local councils set to remain “male, pale and stale”

Elsewhere, as Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont appeared to admit her party was in for a bad night at the local elections, new research said the elections would be “male, pale and stale”.

In a new study, Dr Meryl Kenny and Dr Fiona Mackay of Edinburgh University observed:

“Thirteen years after devolution heralded a ‘new dawn’ in women’s representation – with Nordic levels of women MSPs elected to the first Scottish Parliament – the story remains very different at local government level.

“Less than 1 in 4 candidates for next month’s local government elections are women, leaving the face of local politics looking decidedly ‘male, pale, and stale’ – 1 in 7 council wards is contested by men only.

“Whilst all-women shortlists have attracted controversy both north and south of the border, the continuation of these all-male shortlists and contests largely goes unnoticed. With local government in crisis around perceived problems of legitimacy, representativeness and quality, this raises questions as to the lessons learned, future prospects, and actions needed if there is to any real progress on women’s representation in Scotland.

“We argue that the time has come for tough action on women’s representation, or nothing is going to change anytime soon.

“What are the lessons learned from the Scottish Parliament’s success? First, change doesn’t happen on its own. The high numbers of women elected to the Scottish Parliament were not the result of luck or ‘trickle up’ or natural evolution, but were achieved through sustained campaigning and bold party action.

“In short, gender quotas work. But the puzzle remains: why haven’t quotas ‘caught on’ elsewhere in the political system? Currently, the Scottish Parliament has 45 women MSPs (34.8%), compared with only 22% of Scottish MPs, 17% Scottish MEPs, and 21.6% of Scottish local councillors.

“Of particular note are trends at the local level, where the percentage of women councillors has flatlined over the past four elections, hovering around 22% overall.

“Change can happen when there’s a shake-up of the system. Reformers had high hopes that the introduction of a PR-STV electoral system in local government in the run-up to the 2007 elections would rejuvenate local politics and provide new opportunities for women to be selected and elected.

“However, progress did not materialise; instead, depressingly, it was more of the same. In fact, there was a marked drop in the number of women candidates selected and a small decrease in the number of women councillors elected.

“What are the prospects, then, for the local government elections in 2012? Supporters of STV, such as the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), had hoped that the unrealised progressive promise of STV would materialise in the second elections, once the new system had bedded down. The candidate lists have now been released, and our initial analysis of the raw figures shows that the numbers are virtually unchanged from 2007.

“None of the parties, with the exception of the Scottish Greens, have implemented effective equality measures. This suggests that the number of women likely to take up seats in local councils across Scotland will either stall or fall in 2012.

“Ethnic minority candidate breakdowns are not yet available, but the evidence suggests these numbers also will be low.”

Wales

Grim jobs news gets grimmer

With figures pointing to an extra 1,000 unemployed across Wales, an analysis by Claire Miller for the Western Mail revealed less than half of all permanent vacancies offer more than 24 hours a week with even fewer temporary vacancies doing so (only about 20%).

Responding to the findings, Victoria Winckler, director of the Bevan Foundation, said:

“A job with less than 24 hours or that is temporary is quite unattractive to someone on benefits particularly if they have children, as not only are your costs higher but the benefit regime is so much more complicated. We know from other statistics that temporary working is on the increase and part-time jobs as well.

“I think it will make it extremely difficult for anyone looking for work. People are working several jobs with short or flexible hours. It becomes extremely difficult to find a way out of poverty; it’s hard to up-skill or gain more training when working long hours or uncertain hours.

“You have to start asking questions about the wellbeing of children or families if you have that combination.”

Reacting to the Western Mail’s findings that one in 14 jobs advertised are on flexible contracts which could potentially see someone working between one hour and full time hours any given week, Winckler continued:

“We’ve interviewed people in the past who are in these so-called flexible hours jobs and if you have one of these jobs, you don’t know from one week to the next how much money you’re getting and you don’t know if you need someone to pick up your children or if you’ll be able to go to a night class or visit someone in hospital.

“It’s not just that you work for your hours, it seems you sell your life to these jobs and if you refuse to do those hours, there might be someone else willing to.”

Hain savages “pretty vile” Tory candidates

As shadow Welsh secretary, Peter Hain, launched an outspoken attack on the Welsh Conservatives for fielding candidates he dubbed “pretty vile”, first minister and leader of Welsh Labour, Carwyn Jones, urged supporters to use May 3rd to send a message to Nick Clegg and David Cameron.

Speaking in Newport this week he declared:

“The local elections on May 3rd are vital for Welsh Labour – they are vital elections for Wales. Will your local council work with the Welsh Labour government to shield the most vulnerable from the Tory assault? If it is Labour-run, then yes it will.

“Will your local council put education first, and ensure more money and support is reaching the classroom? If it is Labour-run, then yes it will.

“Will your local councillors be accessible, visible, will they listen to you and act on your priorities? If they are Welsh Labour councillors, then yes, they will.

“And of course, only a vote for Labour will send a message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

“Only a vote for Labour will send a message that they need to act – as we are doing here in Wales – to tackle rising youth unemployment.

“Only a vote for Labour will send a message that Wales rejects the Tory/Lib Dem budget which gave tax breaks for millionaires, paid for by tax rises for our pensioners, and by the cruel cutting of support for families in work struggling to make ends meet.”

It was also reported more than 90 candidates across Wales had already been elected unopposed as the deadline for nominations formally closed.

Northern Ireland

NI education system “failing” children with autism

A new report by the National Autistic Society for Northern Ireland concluded the education system is “failing” children with autism.

In a survey of parents, the report found:

• 80% said a lack of support had harmed their children’s social and communication skills;

• 65% said a lack of support had affected their child’s mental health;

• 49% said they did not have enough information when choosing an educational placement for their child.

In calling for Stormont to develop a coherent special educational needs strategy, Shirelle Stewart, co-director of the National Autistic Society Northern Ireland, commented:

“We hope that this campaign will enable children with autism to access an A* education that sets them up for life. Every area of Northern Ireland needs to have education provision that understands autism.

“It is completely unacceptable that so many parents have to battle to secure their child’s fundamental right to an education. The proposed reforms to the special educational needs system will shape the future of a generation of children with SEN so the Northern Ireland Assembly must listen to parents when they say that the system must do better to meet their needs.”

All quiet on the Stormont front

Meanwhile, as rumours circulated that Parliament would rise earlier than expected before the Queen’s Speech as a result of a lack of activity in the Commons in particular, one minister at Stormont seemed to suggest the same problem was happening there.

Speaking to the Newsletter, Alliance leader and justice minister, David Ford, explained:

“Committees are quite busy, but the Assembly in plenary [full] session is doing relatively little real business.

“Probably at this stage we should be allowing more time for committee meetings and only one day for plenary, whereas later in the session the committees could be turning back to the plenary sessions.

“We should probably be a bit more flexible in the timetable although, frankly, if you listen to what Naomi Long [Alliance MP] is saying about Westminster at the moment, the House of Commons hasn’t been exactly busy doing real business recently either.

“There are peaks and troughs and we haven’t really got the handle of how we smooth out those peaks and troughs yet. I can remember in the past, when we weren’t being paid a full salary, saying that I looked forward to a day when we could justify the salary that we are being paid.

“I think there’s still a concern among the public when you see the business being done here [at the Assembly] that we’re not yet fully earning the salaries that are set.”

Council by-elections

There were four by-elections this week:

• Goresbrook Ward, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham: Lab hold.

– Lab 1113; BNP 593; UKIP 91; Con 81; LD 48. Swing of 5.3% from BNP to Lab since 2010.

• Plaistow Ward, Chester District Council: Con hold.

– Con 455; LD 408. Swing of 14.4% from Con to LD since 2011.

• Spitalfields & Banglatown Ward, London Borough of Tower Hamlets: Ind gain from Lab

– Ind 1030; Lab 981; Con 140; Green 99; LD 39. Swing: N/A.

• Watlington Ward, Oxfordshire County Council: Con hold.

– Con 865; LD 259; Lab 157; UKIP 110. Swing of 5.1% from Con to LD since 2009.

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By Beatrix Campbell

The dialogue with the past finds itself in an eerie quandary in Northern Ireland. There never was going to be a truth commission. Nevertheless, vital evidence has been unearthed that subverts the official narrative of Britain as the neutral, reluctant, peacemaker during 30 years of armed conflict, vindicating suspicions that the British state stewarded the loyalist paramilitaries, and ran death squads.

The evidence has been unearthed by two bodies charged with investigating the past: the Policing Ombudsman and the Historic Enquiries Team, set up by the police to investigate unresolved deaths among more than 3268 killings attributed to the armed conflict.

The latest case to emerge from the HET reveals shocking evidence of the security services’ presence at an ambush of three unarmed republicans in 1990. Sam Marshall was a republican ex-prisoner.

He and two other men, his brother-in-law Tony McCaughey and Colin Duffy - a republican whose face has become well-known in Northern Ireland after being charged and released many times, most recently this year, had just left a bail appointment at Lurgan’s RUC barracks. They were watched followed after a few minutes they met a storm of bullets from VZ58 automatic rifles.

Sam Marshall was killed yards from his home. Colin Duffy and Tony McCaughey ran for their lives. It is only because they lived – and because Duffy had memorised the registration number of a red Maestro car that had been trailing them – that Sam Marshall’s execution returned to haunt the British government.

In 1993, the then-Attorney General, Patrick Mayhew, denied the security services’ involvement. But a US extradition hearing in 1993 was told that there were security service officers in the Maestro. Suspicions of the security services’ involvement in the ambush have swirled ever since.

• How does Northern Ireland achieve reconciliation in 2012? 3 Jan 2012

Finally, the HET told Marshall family there were six security services vehicles present at the ambush, containing nine undercover security services officers. The bullets came from weapons implicated in other murders. The guns were the same as weapons distributed to loyalist paramilitaries in 1988 after MI5 and a loyalist agent, Brian Nelson, orchestrated an arms deal in South Africa.

That arms deal re-invigorated the loyalist paramilitary groups at a crucial moment – a time when the armed adversaries were considering a peaceful settlement.

Collusion was confirmed by John Stevens’s 13-year inquiry. Yet his report has never been published, and the extent and purpose of collusion has never been aired in public. Sam Marshall’s assassination is that story, the crux of the entire conflict. But the HET report is based on a paper review. A senior police officer tells me that the security services’ presence was always known in elite circles.

There has been no new investigation of the officers involved, or of links to other assassinations. According to the family, the HET has ruled out from the actual killing the only people ever convicted: two loyalists arrested for hijacking a car involved in the ambush.

So, who did it? Is it linked to the many other deaths involving those weapons distributed among loyalists by MI5? The HET says it has no evidence that there was collusion, and no evidence that there wasn’t.

Sam’s brother John Marshall was at home that night:

‘I heard the shooting, I was 100 years away. I ran up - all I saw was a crowd, the police were already there and it was cordoned off. We have been lied to for years and years. The HET report stopped short of saying it was collusion. It’s awful.’

The truth seekers are being thwarted. The HET, though it has generated vital evidence, is not independent of the police. The once intrepid policing Ombudsman - a vital source of data on the dirty war in Northern Ireland – has been enfeebled and discredited.

This is tragic. “Peace processes only work on the basis of trust,” observes Jane Winter, director of British Irish Rights Watch. Britain’s engagement in counter-insurgency across the globe stretches the salience of its activities in Northern Ireland – it has, for example, used similar tactics in Iraq.

“It is really important,” adds Winter. “If you don’t deal with the past, if you don’t shine a light, it casts a shadow.”

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Tory MEPs have voted against the withdrawal of gender identity from the the International Classification of Diseases’ list of mental and behavioural disorders.

Daniel Hannan and Nirj Deva voted alongside the likes of the BNP’s Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons in opposing Labour MEP Richard Howitt’s amendment to human rights legislation, with other Tories abstaining.

The amendment, which was passed by 353 votes to 268 with 52 abstentions:

• Commends the Council, the EEAS, the VP/HR, the Commission and the Member States on their engagement in favour of LGBT people’s human rights in bilateral relations with third countries, in multilateral forums, and through the EIDHR;

• Welcomes the reintroduction by the UN General Assembly of sexual orientation as grounds for protection from extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution, and welcomes the EU’s efforts to this end;

• Calls on the Commission to advocate the withdrawal of gender identity from the list of mental and behavioural disorders in the negotiations on the 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and to seek a non-pathologising reclassification;

• Reasserts that the principle of non-discrimination, also embracing grounds of sex and sexual orientation, must not be compromised in the ACP-EU partnership;

• Reiterates its request that the Commission produce a comprehensive roadmap against homophobia, transphobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, also addressing human rights violations on these grounds in the world;

• Calls on the Member States to grant asylum to people fleeing persecution in countries where LGBT people are criminalised, taking into consideration applicants’ well founded fears of persecution, and relying on their self-identification as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

• London Mayoral elections: Livinstone launches LGBT manifesto 13 Apr 2012

• Cameron must speak out against Canada’s anti-gay marriage ruling 13 Jan 2012

• Equal love: Time for the UK Parliament to recognise gay marriage 19 Dec 2011

• Time for the Commonwealth to stop the criminalisation of sexuality 28 Oct 2011

• Tory MEP’s false claims on gay rights 7 Oct 2009

Following the vote, Howitt attacked Tory views on LGBT issues as “neanderthal”, “whatever [David] Cameron claims”, with fellow Labour MEP Michael Cashman, co-chair of the European Parliament’s LGBT Inter-group, adding:

“These Tories should explain why they refused to support an engagement in favour of LGBT people’s human rights when the EU negotiates with countries outside the EU and in multilateral forums. It’s important we use our trading power to encourage reform in countries where LGBT people are persecuted.

“We called for the reintroduction by the UN General Assembly of sexual orientation as grounds for protection from extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution also embracing grounds of sex and sexual orientation – this is human decency and every British MEP should fully support it.

“So why did the Tories abstain?”

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Just weeks after Mike Nesbitt comprehensively won the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party, his short lived honeymoon - if it ever existed in the first place - seems to have ended with the suggestion a third of the party’s MLAs could be prepared to leave altogether.

Last month, David McNarry was suspended from the party for nine months for repeated attacks on previous leader Tom Elliott over who knew what and when about discussions concerning greater cooperation between the UUP and DUP.

However, McNarry, now an independent unionist MLA at Stormont, has suggested five other members of the UUP’s 15 strong Assembly team are also considering following his lead – a result, he said, of them not feeling valued.

McNarry is quoted in today’s Newsletter as saying:

“There was never going to be a honeymoon for Mike [Nesbitt] when he had such an overwhelming victory in the leadership election.

“But there were really no alternatives to reflect what is a common view inside the Assembly Group - traditional unionism.

“So it has been no surprise to me, although I didn’t really think it would happen so quickly, that so far five members have indicated to me that they may be coming to join me on the benches where I sit at the moment.

“Whilst all said so with a smile on their face, clearly there is deep thinking going on. I’m not just too sure how coordinated it is.”

• New UUP leader rules out electoral pact with DUP 2 Apr 2012

• The battle for the future of the UUP begins 13 Mar 2012

• UUP infighting as McNarry says he feels “abused” and has been “kicked in the teeth” 31 Jan 2012

• What’s the point of the UUP? 19 Jan 2012

• UUP renew calls for opposition at Stormont 25 Oct 2011

His comments come as one of the party’s MEPs, Jim Nicholson, launched a scathing attack on the “faceless, gutless” members of the UUP allegedly briefing against him in a bid to see him de-selected ahead of the 2014 European Elections.

Responding to the reports, Nicholson has told the Newsletter:

“I’m extremely saddened by this whole type of briefing which smacks of the same type of underhand comment from people who are not prepared to come out and identify themselves, as happened against Tom Elliott.

“As far as I am concerned, I am not prepared to put up with this. I’m not going to stand for it and these people can either stand up, put up or shut up.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve made my position clear on the Inside Politics show a number of weeks ago, before the whole campaign took place, that I’m enjoying my job, I’m enjoying it more than ever, I’ve got tremendous responsibility in terms of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, I want to continue to work and help on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, and those are my priorities.

“But the one thing that I’m certainly not going to be is put off track on doing my job by these faceless, gutless people who reporters call ‘important people’ or ‘informed sources within the Ulster Unionist Party’.

“Mike Nesbitt said very clearly when he was elected leader that the past was over. As far as I’m concerned, the past is over and if these people want to really come out and challenge me, let them go up there.

“I have stood for election after election since 1975 and if they have the guts to stand there and put their name up against me, I’ll take them on and I’ll take them out. It’s as simple as that.”

Meanwhile, ahead of the party’s annual conference this weekend in Castlereagh, Alliance Party leader and justice minister, David Ford, has warned that his party is seriously considering whether to pull the plug on him remaining in the Justice Department over its anger at the decision to abolish the Department for Employment and Learning, currently led by the Alliance’s Stephen Farry.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph ahead of the conference, Ford said:

“Last year the electorate gave us a guaranteed one seat out of 10 on the Executive as a result of extra votes for Alliance and seats in the Assembly. The proposal at the moment is to fiddle the constitution to deprive us of that right.

“We have made it very clear that in those circumstances we would expect a minister to be given a guarantee - that they could not be removed except by their party leader.”

Pressed whether he could envisage the Alliance council pulling the plug, Ford added:

“I certainly can. There are people who say we should have left the Executive at the point where it became clear Stephen would lose the ministry. People feel fairly sore.”

In the run up to any conference it can be very easy to get carried away with the rhetoric that often goes with such events designed to appease grassroots supporters. That said, however, Ford’s warning should be taken seriously. The Justice post is one of the most sensitive within the Stormont Executive and any move to withdraw Ford from it by the Alliance Party is likely to cause substantial headaches both in Belfast and Westminster.

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Last month Left Foot Forward reported on a tale of two Tory parties, with Conservatives divided on how strongly the party should support “devo max” for Scotland. Yet with local elections just over two weeks away now, a tale of two Labour parties is developing too, as the campaigns of Scottish and Welsh Labour exhibit stark differences.

On the day that a YouGov poll (pdf) for The Sun had Labour enjoying its largest lead across the UK since the 2010 general election, the very same polling put the SNP in Scotland on 46%, leaving Labour trailing quite some distance on 28%.

Officially, Scottish Labour are seeking to pile the pressure on the SNP with all guns blazing.

Seeking to compare the SNP’s financial competence with that of Rangers boss Craig Whyte, the party’s leader north of the border, Johann Lamont, was in a combative mood at Monday’s campaign launch:

“Frankly, if I might say so, after Alex Salmond passed on 90% of Tory cuts to local government, putting the SNP in charge of a local council is like putting Craig Whyte in charge of your tax return. You don’t need to be a football fan to be sick of empty promises which sound good at the time but end up making the future of your community uncertain.”

Challenging the SNP to make the local elections about more than just independence, Lamont concluded:

“Over the next two-and-a-half weeks at least, let’s try to put the debates about borders between our two countries aside and talk about the social barriers which blight lives. Let’s have a battle of ideas. Let’s discuss how we deliver social justice at a time of scarce resources. Let’s talk about real lives, real communities and how we can work together to improve them.”

Still, the reality that May 3rd looks set to be a bad night now seems to be dawning on Scottish Labour.

• Vote 2012: Welsh local council elections preview 7 Apr 2012

• Salmond’s screeching u-turn over independence consultation 3 Apr 2012

• Welsh government wants independence (for its legal system) 29 Mar 2012

• The Tories in Scotland – right message, wrong messengers 26 Mar 2012

• Tories in Scotland: A tale of two parties 20 Mar 2012

With constant predictions that the party could lose a grip of its Glasgow stronghold, the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, Severin Carrell, quotes Lamont thus:

“If the SNP do well in these elections and they will get more councillors this time because they have slightly more confidence or courage to put up a bigger number of candidates.

“Last time around they were very, very cautious, so using the last set of elections as a baseline is perhaps slightly false: in Glasgow they only put up one in every seat [in 2007]. This time I understand they’re putting up at least two, so that will be reflected in what’s a largely two-party political system.

“I am not dismissing in any way the significance of these elections, the challenge for Labour in getting Labour councillors elected, but I have to say to you, if the people of Scotland choose to vote for SNP councillors, that is their choice.

“The challenge for us is to make the political case for staying inside the United Kingdom, regardless of how many elected members there are of whatever stripe.”

Such an admission that the SNP will do well adds to a growing air of concern within Scottish Labour about how it tackles the nationalist threat. While Labour point to the party’s big beasts taking an active role in the Scottish campaign, Martin McCluskey, writing for LabourList, warns that “in 2012 Scottish Labour needs a strategy as sophisticated as Scots themselves”.

Equally, just as the party remains adamant in public that an SNP takeover of Glasgow City Council is not, as some would suggest, a done deal, David Torrance, writing for Total Politics, concludes:

“As one columnist recently put it, for Labour to lose control of Glasgow City Chambers would be ‘akin to waking up one morning and finding that Ian Paisley has taken control of the Vatican’.

“For the SNP, meanwhile, victory would be the perfect springboard for launching its formal ‘Yes’ to independence campaign, conveniently planned to get underway within weeks of May’s potentially game-changing local authority elections.”

Yet while Scottish Labour already look as if they are licking their proverbial wounds, in Wales, party members from Carwyn Jones down – free from the nationalist threat posed to their Scottish comrades – are spoiling for the kind of fight Labour enjoys most. Yesterday, Jones joined shadow Welsh secretary Peter Hain in a full frontal attack on the Conservatives, and their Lib Dem partners in crime, with something approaching relish.

There is a clear sense throughout Welsh Labour that, despite being in government in Cardiff, it has gone into these local elections fighting an insurgency against the ConDem coalition at the other end of the M4.

Addressing candidates, community activists, endorsers and Labour activists in Newport before two days of intense campaigning, Jones declared:

“The local elections on May 3rd are vital for Welsh Labour - they are vital elections for Wales. Will your local council work with the Welsh Labour Government to shield the most vulnerable from the Tory assault? If it is Labour-run, then yes it will.

“Will your local council put education first, and ensure more money and support is reaching the classroom? If it is Labour-run, then yes it will. Will your local councillors be accessible, visible, will they listen to you and act on your priorities? If they are Welsh Labour councillors, then yes, they will. And of course, only a vote for Labour will send a message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

“Only a vote for Labour will send a message that they need to act - as we are doing here in Wales - to tackle rising youth unemployment. Only a vote for Labour will send a message that Wales rejects the Tory / Lib Dem budget which gave tax breaks for millionaires, paid for by tax rises for our pensioners – and by the cruel cutting of support for families in work struggling to make ends meet.”

It’s a fight which also seems now to have the support of the Western Mail. With the Welsh Conservatives publishing their local election manifesto last week with a pledge to “put power in the hands of people and communities”, Matt Withers, Senedd correspondent at Media Wales, wrote at the weekend:

“There seem so many reasons to vote Conservative in next month’s council elections.

“Publishing their manifesto last week, the party set out a veritable Christmas list of things they would do if elected to take over town halls across Wales on May 3rd.

“They will freeze council tax, they promise. Fund schools directly. Freeze the Severn Bridge tolls. Put doctors and nurses in control and hospitals. And reform the planning system.

“And if that sounds too good to be true… well, it is.

“Because the Welsh Conservatives’ local election manifesto is made up almost entirely of policies it could not implement even if they won every single seat on all 21 councils which go to the polls next month.

“In fact, it seems all the party has done is regurgitate its manifesto from last year’s Assembly election and given it a new cover.”

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In the second of our series of articles looking ahead to the May 2012 elections, Tom Harris, editor of Britain-Votes.co.uk, and Harry Hayfield preview the Welsh local council elections

The whole of Wales was scheduled to have council elections take place on Thursday, May 3rd, however one council, which has a habit of bucking trends, will be giving this one a miss.

The Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn) has a history of bitter political infighting which came to a head last year when it became the first council in the UK to have its executive functions taken over by a group of commissioners.

Part of the recommendations to resolve the situation was a restructuring of the electoral arrangements on the island and a move to multi-member wards, so this year’s elections have been postponed until May 2013 so they can be implemented.

Fortunately for us, the other 21 councils in Wales will be holding elections this year and the only thing that can be confidently predicted is that they will be unpredictable.

Huge swaths of the country have a strong tradition of independent councillors and in these areas the main three political parties are generally uncompetitive, or non-existent, at a local level. As such it is difficult to extrapolate a lot of what happens in Welsh local elections to anywhere other than the part of Wales where they are actually taking place, although plenty try.

• On jobs, Wales shows Clegg the way 4 Apr 2012

• Leanne Wood elected new leader of Plaid Cymru 17 Mar 2012

• Vote 2012: An introduction to the various elections on May 3rd 17 Mar 2012

• Wales will fight the Tory dismantling of the NHS 24 Feb 2012

• Preview 2012 – Wales 29 Dec 2011

Powys and Pembrokeshire are the two best examples of Wales’s independent streak, whilst in Carmarthenshire and Gwynedd, Plaid Cymru’s main challengers in council elections comes from localised parties and non-aligned candidates. In Ceredigion the Liberal Democrats do have a degree of success but independents still outnumber them going into these elections.

For anyone not wholly familiar with the geography of Wales those five counties are essentially the Mid & West Wales Assembly Region; so a majority of the country, geographically.

The majority of the country population-wise is in the southern part of Wales, The Valleys. This is one of the strongest regions for the Labour Party in the United Kingdom; they currently hold 20 of the 23 Parliamentary seats in the region and all the Assembly constituencies.

However, in the 2008 council elections Labour had a torrid time in its Welsh heartlands and having lost around 70 seats in The Valleys they emerged holding around 40% of council seats in the area. This historically poor result saw them lose control of councils like Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Torfaen, which had returned Labour majorities ever since the restructure of local government in Wales in the mid-nineties.

These losses were down to a variety of reasons, not least the general view in South Wales that the Labour government was not doing enough for them, perhaps even taking them for granted. The best example of this is the People’s Voice movement that developed in Blaenau Gwent after the constituency party had an all-woman shortlist imposed on them for the 2005 general election.

Peter Law, the then Labour AM for Blaenau Gwent, left the party, ran against the official candidate as an independent in protest, and won; handily. He wasn’t the only one to resign over the perceived meddling and following his death in 2006, the People’s Voice, as they were now organised as, held the Parliamentary by-election and his widow, Trish, won the Assembly by-election, even holding the seat at the 2007 elections.

In the 2008 local elections the People’s Voice did just enough to scupper Labour’s chances of keeping control of Blaenau Gwent and neighbouring Torfaen but since then things have unravelled for the fledgling party. After losing the Parliamentary seat in 2010 they didn’t stand in 2011 Assembly elections. It seems the party is soldiering on but Labour will be expecting to recover these councils in May.

Elsewhere, they will be hoping to regain ground lost in Lib Dem-led Cardiff and to Plaid Cymru in Caerphilly, as well as retaking control of Newport and Merthyr Tydfil.

Wedged between England and The Valleys is the Conservative stronghold of Monmouthshire, which they’ll have no trouble holding onto. The Tories also currently control the Vale of Glamorgan, which is by far their best council prospect in The Valleys, but a net loss of two seats here would see the authority slip back into No Overall Control.

These elections will be an interesting test for Plaid Cymru. They had a fairly strong night in 2008, gaining 31 seats, so they will be hoping to consolidate those advances. Many of thir successes were in The Valleys, and the recent election of the non-Welsh speaker Leanne Wood as their leader could help them appeal to South Wales voters.

However, they may be at risk of losing support in their Welsh speaking heartlands to localised parties so it will be a big night for the new Plaid leader.

If North Wales was in England then it would be prime Conservative territory, and if it were in South Wales Labour would very much fancy their chances. However, North Wales is in North Wales, and so although the two main parties do much better here than in central areas of the country, independents and, to a lesser extent, Plaid Cymru, are also very competitive.

This mix makes it virtually impossible for any party to secure a majority; Conwy and Denbighshire have been in No Overall Control since the restructure in 1995, as has Wrexham since 1999. If any region the United Kingdom could teach the rest of the country about coalitions then this is it; Denbighshire is currently controlled by a grand coalition of all the parties on the council.

Flintshire bucks the trend here having been under Labour control up until 2008, which reflects the council’s proximity to the strong Labour area of Liverpool. However, the swing away from then in 2008 has left them with a lot of ground to make up; a net gain of 13 to be precise.

The Liberal Democrats in Wales, as in England, have been competitive in different areas for very different reasons. The tradition of Liberalism in Powys and Ceredigion has seen many Liberal Democrat (and their predecessor) MPs returned to Parliament but that does not really convert into council seats due to the success of independents on these councils.

In recent years the Lib Dems have managed to make inroads in university towns and cities in Wales, even becoming the largest party on Cardiff council in 2008, but despite the fact education is a devolved policy area they should be expecting a bit of a backlash following the tuition fees rise. In last year’s Assembly elections they lost their sole constituency seat in South Wales, Cardiff Central, and struggled to replace it on the list.

So as you can see, local politics in Wales is a veritable mixed bag with similar regions acting completely differently. All four of the main political parties in Wales are likely to spring surprises in areas, but get disappointed with results in others; the surprise of the night would be evidence of a uniform swing across the country.

Labour should reverse the recent trend of decline, and the Liberal Democrats are likely to struggle in the southern cities, but beyond that just sit back and enjoy the fascinatingly idiosyncratic nature of elections in Wales. Oh, and try to resist the temptation to plug any of the swings into a House of Commons seat calculator!

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Joseph Cottrell-Boyce is a policy officer for the Travellers Project at the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain

Last month the government released its new planning policy (pdf) for Gypsy and Traveller sites in England and Wales.

The ‘radically streamlined planning policy’ – which slashed the previous 54 page document to just 8 pages – will apparently:

“…ensure fair treatment of Travellers in the planning system while respecting the interests of the settled community… [putting] the provision of sites back into the hands of local councils, in consultation with local communities.”

The new policy removes government targets for Traveller sites which it claims “caused tensions with the local settled community” and created a perception of “special treatment for some travellers”.

That Travellers ever got special treatment in the planning system is an extraordinary claim. The reality is that 90% of planning applications submitted by Gypsies and Travellers are rejected, compared to only 20% of applications from the general population.

And while the previous policy of including targets for sites in Regional Spatial Strategies did indeed fail, this failure was characterised not by a rash of new sites causing local tensions, but by local opposition to directives preventing most of the allocated sites being built at all.

• Anti-Traveller attitudes continue to go unchallenged in Britain 29 Feb 2012

• Tory council has Labour MEP physically thrown out from Dale Farm 20 Oct 2011

• Did “intelligence” on Dale Farm protestors come from undercover police agents? 19 Oct 2011

• End of the road for Dale Farm? 13 Oct 2011

• Basildon’s hired spin doctor complains at “emotive” tactics of Travellers 2 Sep 2011

• The ‘Dalits’ of Dale Farm have needs too 1 Sep 2011

• A new voice for the Irish in Britain 16 Nov 2010

The reluctance of local authorities to comply with the 2004 Housing Act and identify adequate new Traveller sites has meant that in the eight years since its introduction, the number of caravans on unauthorised sites stayed constant at around 20% of the total, which in real terms was an increase from 1,977 to 2,395.

Put simply, the provision of Gypsy and Traveller sites is not a vote winner and many local authorities treat Gypsies and Travellers as problems to be got rid of.

A 2006 report by the Commission for Racial Equality concluded:

“Local councillors do not usually see Gypsies and Irish Travellers as members of the community.”

In this context, relaxing the obligation on local authorities to build sites is likely to lead to even the current trickle of provision drying up.

The situation of Britain’s Gypsy and Irish Traveller population is a national embarrassment. Life expectancy is 12 years below the national average, illiteracy rates are off the scale and 25% of Gypsy and Traveller children are not enrolled in education.

Many of the disadvantages faced by Gypsy and Traveller communities stem from a national shortage of legal sites where their families can settle. Twenty per cent of Britain’s caravan dwelling Gypsies and Travellers are officially categorised as homeless, due to living on unauthorised encampments with no legal alternatives.

Illegal sites usually have extremely basic facilities and residents are unable to access GP services or enrol their children in schools.

Adequate site provision is an essential first step towards tackling the gaping disparity in opportunities between Gypsies and Travellers and the settled community. It is also the only sustainable solution to illegal site development.

The scale of the solution is both modest and achievable even within the current economic context. Four thousand additional pitches are required, less than one square mile across the whole country. But to achieve this, proactive policy and strong leadership would be needed in the face of lowest common denominator anti-Gypsy NIMBYism.

What the government has delivered instead is a great leap backward. A policy prescription that will worsen an already dire situation, and make numerous Dale Farm style stand-offs inevitable in the future.

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Alex Salmond’s SNP have performed a screeching u-turn over the conduct of its consultation on an independence referendum after a row erupted over claims the way it was being run was fundamentally flawed.

Having published the “Your Scotland, Your Referendum” (pdf) consultation document in January, the Scottish government had over the weekend admitted members of the public could submit multiple anonymous responses, leading to accusations over the validity of the process.

In a written parliamentary answer, the Cabinet Secretary for Parliamentary Business and Government Strategy, Bruce Crawford, explained that “all responses will be accepted” from those who keep their identity secret.

He continued:

“Respondents can indicate on the respondent information form if they wish to remain anonymous. Any response submitted without a respondent information form will also be treated as anonymous.”

With Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Anas Sarwar MP, having called on the Scottish government to scrap the consultation and start again, Patricia Ferguson, Labour’s constitutional spokesperson at Holyrood, argued:

“The Scottish government’s answer suggests anyone can put in as many responses to their consultation as many times as they like. This makes this most important consultation completely and utterly meaningless. It is not just open to abuse but appears to be inviting abuse.”

• Salmond tells SNP Conference: “Home Rule beats Tory rule any day” 10 Mar 2012

• Salmond courts Murdoch as pro-union dream team finally begins to emerge 28 Feb 2012

• Is Cameron a separatist sleeper-cell? 18 Feb 2012

• Salmond’s Scottish referendum is a textbook example of a leading question 27 Jan 2012

• Déjà vu as Scottish referendum campaign turns nasty 25 Jan 2012

Turning her attention to the problems the SNP has had with cybernats, web-users who hide behind anonymity to promote independence online - often in abusive terms - Ferguson continued:

“Considering the problem the SNP have with their cybernats, the likelihood of this consultation being distorted for the SNP’s own ends is enormous. This will add to the feeling Salmond is trying to rig the referendum. All along we have argued the running of this referendum must be independent and must be, and be seen to be, above reproach.

“Instead, even the Scottish government’s consultation looks more like something from a banana republic than the 21st century democracy that Scotland is.”

Under such pressure, Ministers at Holyrood have now announced responses will only be accepted and included in the analysis of responses if they provide personal identification details.

Seeking to emphasise that just 414 responses out of a total of 11,986 were anonymous, Bruce Crawford explained:

“The Scottish government’s referendum consultation is gathering huge levels of public interest as we debate and discuss Scotland’s future - and the robustness of the process is demonstrated by the fact that the consultation will be subject to independent analysis. This stands in stark contrast to the much smaller UK government consultation, which was not put to independent analysis.

“As the figures we have published demonstrate, there is absolutely no evidence of anonymous responses skewing the process - quite the reverse - but we can and will make the process stronger still by requiring all submissions to have personal identification details before they are taken into account. While anonymous contributions would always have been separately identified, we will now ensure that no anonymous submissions are included in the analysis at all.

“And while there is no evidence of duplicate identical responses from the same person, we can and will ensure that any received are also excluded from the independent analysis so that their view is only represented once.”

With Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont having called for the Scottish Parliament to be recalled to enable MSPs to question Alex Slamond over the fiasco, a spokesperson for the party responded last night to the latest developments by declaring:

“This is a humiliating climb-down for the SNP government, which appears to have lost control over its own consultation and now appears to be making it up as it goes along. Just 24 hours ago, the SNP government was claiming this was identical to previous consultations - this embarrassing u-turn shows they have been caught bang to rights.

“We are also keen to see this independently verified.”

In an editorial, meanwhile, the Herald has argued Holyrood and Westminster each have something to learn about the consultations they either have or are undertaking.

The paper today argues:

There is… a far more important issue at stake here than political point-scoring between the SNP and Labour.

The SNP has said that previous consultations under the joint Labour-Liberal Democrat administration accepted anonymous contributions. There is a significant difference in relation to the consultation on the referendum. Its outcome will be used to shape the most important vote to be cast by the people of Scotland. Any allegation that it has been skewed or hijacked by one side or the other risks suspicion of political manipulation.

By yesterday morning, 11,986 responses had been submitted to the consultation. That is an encouraging indication of the level of public involvement. While only 3.5% were anonymous and, according to Mr Crawford, there was no evidence of multiple identical responses from the same person, the possibility of organised duplicate submissions, whether from the SNP’s army of technologically-adept “cybernats” or from the Unionist parties, has left a question over the impartiality of the responses.

In this regard, compared with the UK government’s consultation on the referendum, which allowed respondents to request anonymity only if they provided details of their identity which would be available for inspection to an overseeing body such as the Electoral Commission, the Scottish consultation looks flawed.

The SNP was keen not to look as if it had been caught on the back foot by David Cameron but the announcement of a separate Scottish consultation would have benefited by being more rigorously tested for neutrality.

The Scottish process, however, has the considerable advantage of responses being analysed by an external body, which will exclude any duplicates which appear to be from the same computer as well as anonymous submissions. This is a vital first step in regaining the transparency which Mr Salmond said would be an integral part of the process. It is also essential that the analysis is made public if it is to satisfy demand for accountability.

It continues:

Unless there is complete confidence that every aspect of the referendum is as unbiased as can possibly be achieved, it will be open to suspicion of political influence. It must also be remembered that the landslide vote which produced the unexpected outright majority for the SNP at Holyrood does not mean voters have suspended their critical faculties. Quite the reverse. A feeling that in some areas the Labour Party was taking support for granted was a significant factor in the swing to the SNP. Mr Salmond should not forget that the boot could just as easily be transferred to the other foot.

The lesson from this consultation is that every aspect of the referendum process must be overseen, from the beginning, by a politically neutral and independent body such as the Electoral Commission.

Elsewhere, following a series of questions over the way the SNP and Alex Salmond have handled donations and donors to the party, it has emerged the first minister has now written to Dame Elish Angiolini, one of the independent advisers on the Scottish ministerial code, to ask her to investigate whether a breach of the Code has occurred.