TOO MUCH CHANGE

Devastated to learn today that my favourite weekly journal – ScottishReview – is winding up. Its articles have been short and powerful – representing the best of Scottish writing. And its eloquence can be tasted in the twelve compendia it has issued since it started life in 1995 – a few years after I had left its shores.

Please dip in to see what you’ve missed!

Kenneth Roy – a voice to renew faith in journalism - RIP

Most “names” that resonate with us are of famous people whose activities – whether celebrated in music, text or acts of courage – somehow send a tingle down our spine….

Kenneth Roy - who has just died mere weeks after revealing his terminal diagnosis - was not a "famous person", although he certainly had a profile in well-read Scottish circles. His was rather a “voice” (sadly almost unique in modern journalism) which measured the moral significance of public actions….

He was the founder and editor of a small Scottish journal – Scottish Review – to which ex-pats like me would look forward with great anticipation. It has a freshness matched by few other journals…The people who write for it did so because they had something to say – unlike most of the text which is inflicted on us these days….

His articles were a joy to read and represent what I imagine is the best of traditional journalism borne of the requirement in those days for new recruits to spend their initial years reporting the doings of the Police Court…. As the apparently self-penned obituary which announced his passing put it,

“he always maintained this experience gave him a dark view of human nature, particularly as his duties were sometimes combined with a night-time trawl of the city's police stations for copy”.

It was such training which must account for the powerful story he always tells – which generally mix in the personal aside and local colour. Ian Jack is another journalist of this ilk…. 

I didn’t know him – although we corresponded once a few years ago when it looked as if I might be able to pop into his offices on a rare visit to Scotland. But, somehow, the knowledge of his mere existence and continued activity kept my faith in humanity…

In his honour, I have started to reread his book The Invisible Spirit – a life of post-war Scotland 1945-75. It was a part of a trilogy he was doing – the second part of which was The Broken Journey - a life of Scotland 1976-99 which was reviewed by one of this little country’s many great authors

There is only one Amazon review but it is an excellent one which captures the essence of Roy’s style…..

This is a big book, physically and intellectually and a very important book too - but rest assured that it is an incredibly easy read. This is mostly because Kenneth Roy's prose is so clear and so elegant. Above all, it's a book that tackles complex and difficult subjects in an accessible and thought provoking way. Every chapter stays in your mind and makes you think. The subject matter may be serious, the analysis incisive, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny at times, mostly because Kenneth Roy can see a devastating humour in the most grim of situations.

He has a sharp and deadly wit and a very fine sense of the ridiculous. Ridicule may well be the best weapon against so much of the material contained within these pages. As the writer points out in his final chapter, 'the reason for re-assembling some of the more deplorable features of Scottish public life is not only to expose...the poor quality of so much of it. It is to make the general...point that the people of Scotland were on the whole badly served by their masters - and by what passed for a free press.'

I lived in Scotland through a significant number of these years and I can vouch for the essential truth of this account, although it is a salutary experience to read it all of a piece like this.
It's a sad and worrying book. Worrying because by the end, you are forced to the conclusion that pretty much anyone who aspires to be a politician, or even to play a significant part in public life, perhaps anyone who craves power, may well be constitutionally unsuited to the role: sic a parcel of rogues indeed. And it's depressing in its brilliant illumination and analysis of venality, disregard for suffering and parochial small-mindedness (almost in spite of the author - who tends to err on the side of fairness, if not quite kindness.)

There are precious few heroes or heroines in this book - although there are a few and what a relief it is to come upon them from time to time! It should be required reading for all Scots, whether for or against independence, or still undecided. It should also be required reading for anyone, anywhere in the world, with an interest in post-war Scottish, or even British history. A masterpiece. And an entertaining one, at that.

Catherine Czerkawska

This morning’s news of his death shocked me into recording this homage. It is at times like these that we both question - and need strongly to reaffirm - the significance of our brief lives….

His memorial service was held on 14 March 2019 at Glasgow City Chambers and can be seen here on Youtube. It is deeply evocative - not least for the reading by renowned Scottish actor Bill Paterson of some of Kenneth's texts. These tell us so much about the mix of insight and pawky humour which characterised Kenneth Roy's journalism. I highly recommend it 

The painting is "Whiteinch Library" by Scottish artist Frank McNab which adorns the cover of his "The Invisible Spirit"

The mask of reform

A rereading of yesterday’s questions for a Skype discussion today was quite salutary – particularly the first one – “What were the forces which helped reform the state system of the various EU member countries?” Talk about begging the question! In what sense can we actually say the British or French state system has actually reformed in the past 40 years – let alone in a “better” direction?? Of course the rhetoric of reform is in place – which it certainly wasn’t 40 years ago. I vividly remember the writing of organisational analysts such as Charles Lindblom in the 1970s who invented phrases such as “disjointed incrementalism” to demonstrate the impossibility of modern public oganisations being able to change radically. Suddenly in the late 1980s, the language changed and everything seemed possible – “Total Quality Management” was a typical phrase. Thatcher has a lot to answer for – in creating the illusion that private management (concepts and people) had the answer. And, perversely, the greater the chaos it caused, the greater the need for management.
After several waves of major public sector reforms in Britain, a lot of people would say that things have gone backward – or, more nuanced, that any improvements are down to technological and financial rather than managerial developments. And “managerial” covers elements of both macro structures (like Agencies) and management hierarchy and behaviour - which has certainly got worse as the ethic of public service has disappeared. But who is best placed to make such judgements? Using what criteria? Do we rely on public surveys? But survey work is so profoundly influenced by the sorts of questions asked – and interpretations. Politicians, managers and professionals all have their vested interest in the stance they take – although the older “coalface” professional is perhaps in the best position to judge.
We have a lot of comparative indicators these days about both individual public services (France regularly tops the league tables for health; Finland for education) and governance systems. But they don’t seem to have much link with the experiences of ordinary people. This is where the efforts of a small journal like Scottish Review are so important – in putting spotlight on the greed and incompetence of leaders of public services in Scotland. Today its indefatigable editor watched the behaviour of the 2 most senior people of Glasgow University (my alma mater) during a at a public meeting of students trying to understand the heavy-handed police raid (which included a helicopter) on students occupying a building. Last Tuesday, 15 students were occupying the Hetherington Club, the police despatched to the scene between 40 and 80 officers (the number varies from account to account), up to 18 vehicles and the Strathclyde helicopter. As Kenneth Roy writes "What was all that about? The police made themselves look more than a little foolish". A combination of education and media exposure has made the british public lose its traditional deference to those with authority. But increasingly those in public positions are exposed for lacking the basic character (let alone competence)for the job. And, increasingly, managerialism (and the salaries which go to the top echelons)seems to be at the root of the problem. I therefore return to the question I posed in my 2006 paper to the NISPAcee Conference - how can those of us who come from such culture dare to give advise to those struggling in "transition" countries? And should these countries bother anyway about transition to such systems? They were in the neo-liberal heaven (everything for sale) long before us - in the mid 1990s when their taxation systems collapsed and their elites realised what a great legitimisation for their corruption the new Western Weltanschaung gave them!

Either the University Principal knew and approved what was about to happen, in which case he showed extremely poor judgement; or he was unaware of the invitation to the police until the helicopter was buzzing overhead, in which case he had lost control of his own staff. Either way there is an issue of personal responsibility. In the meeting in Bute Hall, we saw a microcosm of the more general failings of Scottish public life: the largely meaningless incantation of a duty of care; the feebleness of non-executives even, as in this case, an elected one; the reluctance of those in power to acknowledge their own errors; the tendency in a crisis to consolidate the crumbling position of the strong while failing to protect the vulnerable; the absence of wit and forensic ability