Certain Uncertainties

One of the drawbacks of democracy is that idiotic people get to vote.

I say that not as a complaint, but as an observation and although it can be frustrating at times I am still a firm believer in the universal franchise as a means of resolving thorny issues, problems and disputes.

Unlike the ancient Greeks, of course, whose view of democracy was that only an 'intellectual aristocracy' ought to be allowed the vote and take part in their big public debates.

But in Scotland, as elsewhere, the common people have fought for hundreds of years to introduce the notion of 'one person one vote' and we in common with many other modern  democracies have even gone as far as insisting that individual rights must be protected as well in certain circumstances.

In other words, the proposition is that even democracy has limits and that the views of a majority cannot be used to tyrannise and oppress a minority, even a small minority, in the name of religion, for example.

All of which is great if you ask me, though it doesn't mean I don't get frustrated when idiotic people say idiotic things when it comes to discussing the big issues of the day - in the press, on TV and radio programmes, at public meetings, in private meetings, in union meetings, on web sites and blog sites.      

For example, one of the comments that you hear frequently in the current debate on Scottish independence is a demand for 'certainty' - and for supporters on both sides of the Yes/No argument to explain what will happen 'if'. 

Which is completely ridiculous, of course, because we live in an uncertain world and while we debate Scotland's future in Europe (or not as the case may be), there's another big row underway at Westminster which may lead to the UK pulling out of Europe altogether after the 2015 general election.

So the demand for certainty is not in anyone's gift whether they belong to the vote 'Yes' or vote 'No' campaigns.   

And just to prove that life is full of uncertainties, back in 1999 when I was Unison's Head of Local Government and chief negotiator in Scotland ,I was as sure as I could be about anything that the Scottish council employers and the trade unions were right behind the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement in Scotland - which was intended to end years of pay discrimination against 100,000 plus low paid workers.

One the reasons I was confident about the impact of this 'landmark agreement' was that the the employers and the trade unions were all agreed that women's jobs had been underpaid and undervalued for many years - the largest councils and the trade unions were of the same, pro-Labour political outlook.

What could possibly go wrong?  

Yet it did and I've yet I've still to meet anyone from the Scottish employers or the trade unions who can explain why equal pay was 'dead in the water' until Action 4 Equality Scotland arrived on the scene in 2005 - and to this day we're still fighting for equal pay, of course.

Nor can I find anyone who can explain why the Scottish employers and trade unions stood back and allowed a teachers pay agreement costing £800 million a year to leapfrog and take precedence over a pay agreement affecting the lowest paid council workers which would have cost a lot less than £500 million a year.

Now if that's represents progressive politics, socialism or wealth redistribution in modern Scotland - then I promise to hop all the way, on one leg, from Glasgow to John O'Groats.