For archaeologists, monetary matters pale against the historical significance of the torcs, which probably date from between the 1st and 3rd centuries BC. Intriguingly, the Stirling find appears to reveal links between local tribes — traditionally seen as isolated — and other Iron Age people in Europe. Goldwork of roughly equivalent design has been discovered near Toulouse, in the South of France, a connection suggesting that both ideas and technology travelled over surprisingly large distances.
Ian Ralston, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, pointed out that the latest find comes eight years after an Iron Age cart burial was unearthed at Newbridge in West Lothian. This high-status burial — probably a chieftain and his chariot — was the first of its type to have been found in Scotland, though similar interments took place from the Atlantic coast of France to Hungary. “These two finds suggest tribes in what we think of as ‘Scotland’ had rather wider links than archaeologists a generation ago would have expected,” Professor Ralston said. “They knew what was going on elsewhere, valued similar things and emulated practice in burials or votives.”
“If you had said to me in 2000, what are the chances of a cart burial turning up in Scotland, I would have said about zilch. If you had asked the same question about a hoard of torcs near Stirling, I would have said about zilch. Then these discoveries turn up and very quickly change perceptions of the past.”
Experts said the hoard was of European significance, showing the wealth and connections of people in Scotland at the time. The exact location of the find is being kept secret to stop it being flooded by other metal detectorists. The Treasure Trove Unit, an independent body based at the National Museum of Scotland, is continuing to excavate the site.
The collection consists of two ribbon torcs in a local style made from a twisted ribbon of gold, half an ornate torc of southern French origin and a unique braided gold wire torc that shows strong influences of Mediterranean craftsmanship.
IN case you missed this quirky, quixotic tour of Scotland by Englishman Jonathan Meades in Off Kilter, the wonders of the internet and digital TV mean it is still available to see. This is a passionately dispassionate, unsentimentally engaged journey, where neither Calvinism, caber nor kilt is celebrated, but other things - the abstract beauty of heavy machinery, ‘football pools’ town and the social cohesion brought about by old industry.
It is hard to watch this beautifully shot, engagingly narrated programme and not see ourselves - whether the product of Irish experts in victimhood or Ulster-Scots religious freaks - occasionally reflected in Scotland’s cultural facets. Billy Connolly this ain’t; dry and deadpan, humanist Meades is just as acerbic and incisive. A trilogy well worth a watch, even if it never will be appreciated north of Berwick.
You can see it here until Wednesday, or download it for a bit longer. Or else record the repeats in early October. Here’s a sample from the granite city’s port which seems curiously appropriate to this former north Antrim resident:
“Aberdeen is a Presbyterian city. Presbyterianism is not fun. It is proscriptive, though it doesn’t share the quaint affection of certain Muslim regimes for gruesomely barbaric punishments that are far from condign.
“In a Presbyterian city a zone of tolerance is a necessity - a place to escape to, a place which has the key to probity’s shackles. A zone of tolerance.
“The expression is both euphemism and lie; such areas were not tolerated. But they recurred because humanity’s base needs are stronger than piffling religion.”
Talk to a Tory of any standing and bring up the subject of Vince Cable and they all mumble something about him being in the wrong party or wishing for some kind of pact with the Lib Dems so he can be the next Chancellor. There is - comparatively speaking - very little confidence in the shadow Chancellor George Osborne, at least at the base. Cable launched this paper he’d written for the think tank du jour in London at the moment, Reform, not just on the need for fiscal cuts, but how they might be managed to least affect those services deemed necessary for the smooth running of society…
This is precisely the kind of work the Tories should have been doing over the last three years, but have thus far seemed unable or unwilling to get to grips with (at least within the public domain), given the inevitable tightening that’s going to be foisted upon the next UK government(s), regardless of their political colouring…
These paragraphs from the executive summary demonstrate a foresight which is missing from a Brown administration knackered from dealing with targeted daily attacks on their key figures, and frankly being too long at the centre of power… and the young turks of the Conservative party, who seem determined to test Blair’s old trick of dominating that diurnal round of news to the point of destruction…
The emphasis for fiscal consolidation must fall on controlling public spending, not higher taxes: to commit to additional tax revenue raising from the outset undermines any commitment to setting priorities in spending.
This process will be painful and difficult. It will involve real cuts in many areas and will mean that the big budgets – health, welfare, defence and education – must be tackled. There should be no “ring fenced” areas of
spending. Existing spending has to be justified, not simply assumed to be necessary and trimmed at the edges.
The traditional method of “salami slicing” with across-the- board cuts to all services without any priorities being set, causes considerable damage to valued services. Instead, a systematic process of selecting high and low priorities for public spending is needed. Radically decentralising decision making to local government through transferring revenue raising powers would help achieve better value for money. Engaging democratically elected politicians in the choices would inject democratic accountability.
The debate should not become distracted by a focus on “efficiency” savings. No doubt public administrators can be made more conscious of costs and efficient management, but it is not credible to believe that greater “efficiency” is a panacea, not least because it has been invariably promised and not delivered in the past.[emphasis added]
This is a game politicians right across the UK are going to have to learn to play… And they are, as they in the Belfast vernacular, going to have to ‘grow some’ and level with the wider electorate about what’s facing us all… As Matthew Taylor noted back in May:
...we are unable to have a grown up conversation about the challenges which politicians can only resolve if we work with them: notably, public spending restructuring, population ageing and climate change. We the citizens are stuck in a bad place; increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet willing to govern ourselves.
That will not go down well with the green ink brigade who tend to think in terms of storming the Winter Palace and getting rid of ‘public service’ altogether…
Good that Cable’s setting new terms for the public debate… Bad that, barring a miracle, it’s more likely he will have absolutely nothing to do with how the next UK government sets about reforming government…
Anthony Seldon, Tony Blair’s authoritative biographer noted at a Total Politics panel yesterday that upon his arrival at number ten the former Labour Prime Minister signalled that “he intended to head up a reforming liberal or Attlee style government, but in the end he gave us Iraq and target setting…”
Cable’s more modest targets fit the current demand for a reductionist Zeitgeist… But his worthy suggestions will also demand of political leaders that they keep open channels to a populace more used to politicians who have over-promised and under-delivered…
Whether they’re in Westminster, Holyrood, Stormont, or even Leinster House…
Slugger will be at the first public organised by the first Evolve seminar tomorrow at the Ulster Hall in Belfast… Jack McConnell will be giving his view of what devolution has delivered and is continuing to deliver for Scotland. And he has kindly accepted our request to answer questions from Slugger readers (we’d especiallylike to hear from those of you in Scotland!)... So let us have them in the comment zone below…
Northern Ireland was first to get devolution and has, arguably, done the least with it… Particularly in comparison with Scotland, but even the advisory Welsh Assembly seems to making more legislative headway than our lot… There’s now a new public policy forum called Evolve... it’s a play on idea devolution with the clear implication that they think things need to move on, if organically… Their first public event takes place at 12.15pm in the Ulster Hall on 8th September with Jack McConnell, Scotland’s longest serving First Minister as inaugural speaker. The Presser notes that:
Mr. McConnell, who was Scottish First Minister for six years, will give an address on the theme of ‘How can Devolution Deliver?’ Scotland’s experience of Holyrood is often cited as example of what devolution can deliver and close links already exist between the administrations in Belfast and Edinburgh.
“I believe that Scotland’s young parliament has changed our country for the better, with an increased population, better schools, more jobs as well as improvements in services and our legal system. And we have forged a new, stronger relationship with the rest of Europe and elsewhere in the world.
“This is the real test of devolution and its institutions – not whether the process of government works for politicians and civil servants, but whether it delivers for the people. I have no doubt that devolution has been good for Scotland and will be good for Northern Ireland.”
As it happens, Slugger will be there on the day, and we’ll do what we can to grab a few words from the former Scottish First Minister…. If you’re on LinkedIn, see also our ‘nascent’ Politics and Public Affairs group…
...once competing forces were at play, as they have been since the Nationalists finally won through in 2007, by a slender one-seat majority, the way was clear for the type of legislative and constitutional conflict that we now see in these islands an almost permanent basis.
Virtually every day, there are public rows, mostly about money, and mostly engineered by the nationalists. The latest concerns the Treasury’s refusal to allow the Scottish Executive to spend money it doesn’t have on building the new Forth crossing.
But perhaps worse than what we can see is the dispiriting effect of the deep suspicion – and plain old-fashioned dislike – that now afflicts virtually all of the dealings between ministers and officials in London and Edinburgh. A prize example is the vicious (but so far private) cross-border sniping going on over the Megrahi case.
Slowly but surely, the two countries are drifting apart. Devolution was supposed to save our 300-year-old Union. It is actually doing precisely the opposite.
Libya, under the newly pragmatic rule of Col Muammar Gaddafi, has become an important ally, ideally placed to help us combat terrorism and nuclear proliferation – the two biggest threats to British national security. So keeping Libya happy matters a great deal, particularly as the country also possesses 42 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and a similar abundance of natural gas. Thanks to our new friendship with Libya, BP’s biggest exploration project in the world is now under way inside Col Gaddafi’s domain.
Britain needs to make sure that nothing interferes with what diplomats call “our bilateral relationship” with Libya. If that means sending one 57-year-old prisoner back to his homeland, particularly if he happens to be terminally ill – so allowing him to be released on “compassionate grounds” – then so be it.
Splintered Sunrise has a particularly interesting take on the role devolution is playing in these particular mechanics:
The beauty of this is that, as the media, American politicians and victims’ families get het up, it’s the SNP that’s going to take the hit for a situation not at all of their making. The Westminster government has washed its hands of the matter, and the O’Bama administration, which has no responsibility in the matter, can throw as many hardline shapes as it likes without affecting the outcome. We can rest assured that, whatever the huffing and puffing in London and Washington, nothing will be done to seriously affect relations with our new friend Gaddafi.
...in one respect at least, the interests of the United Kingdom government and security services have already been served by the ending of the Megrahi appeal. London does not want the disclosure of further documents relating to the case, as demanded by Megrahi’s legal team.
An end that was, we might speculate, contingent upon the man’s release today. And, perhaps, Lord Mandleson’s untimely visit to meet Gaddafi’s son. Well, maybe. At least all of it is in line with Blair’s (or rather the FCO’s) view that the release is in the UK‘s national interest.
Kenny MacAskill was focussed throughout. The media, Westminster, the victims of the atrocity, US Senators and even the Secretary of State had their say, generally pleading with the Justice Secretary to keep Megrahi behind bars, but the decision was clearly Kenny’s own and the rather ludicrous quantity of news on the matter seemingly didn’t rush his decision.
Slugger was a one man band until the summer of 2003. The first summer we had less than 100 readers, so I left for the wilds of Donegal with nary a backward glance. The second year, when we had acquired over a thousand readers on a daily basis, it seemed we had created a demand that was worth finding a way to continue to fulfill. Not wishing to impose a demand for a substitute Mick Fealty, I put out a call for bloggers from a mix of backgrounds. It was conscious decision on my part since it seemed to me that Slugger’s appeal from the start that it culled the best journalism from across the piste…
But we have always struggled to recruit and keep bloggers from the Unionist tradition (for some reason, nationalists have always seem more willing to ‘share’ their opinion on politics here). With the departure of Fair Deal for pastures new, we have a major space going for someone who is mainstream unionist opinion.
I have a queue of nationalists who want to blog on Slugger, but no unionists. I’ve had to put some of their kind offers on hold until such times as we can address the primary imbalance in the blogging team. If you’d like to like to get involved, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with a two or three sample pieces on any given subject regarding NI, GB or Europe…
On a related matter, we’re keen to pull in people who can give us a strong local perspective on Scottish, Welsh and European politics too.
I’m not particularly worried about impartiality, so much as the quality of analysis. One of things I know our readers value more than anything else is the multiplicity of views they can read in the one space. If you think you can help push Slugger develop its potential in responsibly holding the various democratic institutions to account, then .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)...
The latest Britblog round up is here, Whilst Duncan’s Scottish round up leads on the Gary McKinnon debacle... There’s quite a few posts on the rejection of David Kerr, former BBC Journo, by local Scot Nat activists, ostensibly for being a member of Opus Dei… BTW, I’ve just started putting together Slugger’s Scottish blogroll... Any helpful pointers will be humbly received (along with any useful suggestions for how to classify them)... Here’s the modified Irish list...
HOonest, I was looking for something else, when I came across this little gem in the Scottish Sun... It comes complete with video of Rio, the Sectarian Parrot… You couldn’t make it up…
Three Thousand Versts takes Kalman to task for his report on Scottish devolution, and Chekov asks:
Surely this type of tinkering can only emasculate our national Parliament at Westminster and compound the asymmetries which Labour’s constitutional experiment has inflicted upon the United Kingdom?
He goes on to consider the recommendations, but seems unconvinced:
...the recommendations stress the need for different levels of government with responsibility for Scotland; Westminster, Holyrood and down to the local level; to work together. Indeed, it might have noted that an attritional relationship between the Scottish and national governments only serves to bolster the SNP’s campaign for independence. The report offers rather a convincing case for continued Union, as well as a clear exegesis of Scotland’s place within the constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom, but if its practical recommendations would ultimately weaken that Union, then the body has failed to satisfy its remit.
I’ll offer couple of sub constitutional thoughts for the pot. One from my ex River Path colleague, David Steven on Twitter this morning who noted in passing that the unlovable character of local government relates to the fact that it is actually responsible for raising very little of its own budget.
And the Mayoral system (a Labour innovation which is very popular on the centre right) in certain cities in England, where the vote for a populist Mayor in Doncaster is likely to lead to serious clashes between himself and his council, if only in terms of picking a ‘cabinet’.
These tensions exist. The question is less should they exist, but rather can they usefully persist in a settled Union?
The work was enjoyable because Henryson’s language led me back into what might be called “the hidden Scotland” at the back of my own ear. The speech I grew up with in mid-Ulster carried more than a trace of Scottish vocabulary, and as a youngster I was familiar with Ulster Scots idioms and pronunciations across the River Bann in Co Antrim. I was therefore entirely at home with Henryson’s “sound of sense”, so much in tune with his note and his pace and his pitch that I developed a strong inclination to hum along with him. Hence the decision to translate the poems with rhyme and metre, to match as far as possible the rhetoric and the roguery of the originals, and in general “keep the accent”.
O’Neill thinks so (sorry O!)... Though I am not sure I buy all of his reasoning, not least that little bit of futuring about being the government of four parts of the Union (getting MPs elected is not being made any more likely by the continued lack of credible candidate matches for its three target seats)... The one, apparently (the Tories have been moving around a fair amount; NHS funding for instance) point he makes is worth repeating:
The modern Conservative Party is one, by necessity, built on pragmatism and a fair bit of libertarianism. Brown’s attempt to impose a “one-size-fits all” version of Britishness will not be repeated; the much more sustainable (and easier to sell) “umbrella” version will inevitably emerge.
If it were possible to measure the benefit of the substantial and long investment in Northern Ireland’s nascent democracy it would be in the degree of political unity of purpose observable between the First and Deputy First Minister in their responses to the recent shootings. But then that is measuring up from a very low base. In Scotland, people are struggling to put a value on the benefits devolution has brought to them:
38% of voters said they believed devolution had improved their quality of life, 41% said it had made no difference, and 16% said it had deteriorated.
Exactly half of voters said devolution had failed to make Scotland safer, despite moves to curb antisocial behaviour and put more police on the streets, while 20% said they felt less safe. Only 22% said they felt more secure.
Some 31% said they believed standards in schools had improved, with 23% claiming they had become worse and 31% saying there had been no difference.
Since Labour was the party in power for most of that time, I guess it’s their rather than the SNP’s governmental approach that’s in the firing line… But in fact it’s the quality of the policy interventions rather than devolution itself that’s in the firing line. In fact most Scots want more devolved powers, not less:
...most people believe the powers of the parliament should be extended. If a multi-option referendum was held next year, 27% would vote for independence, 31% for more powers short of independence, 19% would back the status quo and 14% would opt to scrap Holyrood. The finding may help to explain why unionist parties are wary of backing a multi-option ballot.
The Scots have had a good ten years start on Northern Ireland re fiscal management. Plus they don’t have antithetical interests endlessly competing inside the Scottish Government tent. Which may be one reason why they have a £40 million underspend whereas Northern Ireland, according to some sources, has an overspend of up to £73 million. It hasn’t stopped the SNP trying to die in the ditch for more Whitehall cash for the second Forth Road bridge. Mostly because of a £2 billion shortfall in the amount needed to cover the whole project. Intense negotiations between Yvette Cooper from the Treasury and the Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy on one hand and the Scottish Finance Minister John Swinney yielded an extra £1/2 billion in cash through Barnett (from the cancelled Glasgow Crossrail project), with up to another £600 million being leveraged through savings, property sales and keeping this year’s underspend.
Slugger will be at the first public organised by the first Evolve seminar tomorrow at the Ulster Hall in Belfast… Jack McConnell will be giving his view of what devolution has delivered and is continuing to deliver for Scotland. And he has kindly accepted our request to answer questions from Slugger readers (we’d especiallylike to hear from those of you in Scotland!)... So let us have them in the comment zone below…
As noted back in May 2006, Seamus Heaney has been working on a modern English account of the work of the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson [c 1420-1490]. Here’s a link to the Guardian interview at the time. And one of his translations from Henryson - “The Toad and The Mouse”. What was intended as a tale of Four Fables and a Testament has now been published as The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables And back at the Guardian website, along with a new [partial] translation from Henryson - from The Preaching of the Swallow, Seamus Heaney relates what little is known about Robert Henryson and what started him “on this retelling”.
Over on Brassneck, Scotland is feeling the sharp end of the collapse in some financial services. But local solutions are not much use if the bigger global picture is not tackled...
