Here in the U.K., one of the big stories this morning is that Justice Minister Jack Straw has announced that he plans to give more leeway to regular citizens to use “reasonable force” to stop criminals.  They’re calling such citizens “have-a-go heroes,” which to me, accustomed to American English, sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon.

It is also being widely reported that Straw himself has intervened in robberies on four occasions (three times successfully apprehending the criminal).  Four times?  Who is even at the scene of a robbery four times?

As I mentioned, I spent much of yesterday at the Scottish Parliament, doing some interviews.  The first thing I noted was that a lot of people are still very angry about the building itself.  It was supposed to have been built for about 40 million pounds, and was instead completed (a few years late) at a  price of 431 million pounds.  And in a recent opinion poll, it was voted one of the 12 buildings in the U.K. that the population would most like torn down.

Besides that bit of absurdity, and the fact that at one point I accidentally angered the Scottish National Party, what I took away most was how reasonable Scottish politics seems.  Granted, maybe that’s because my own experience in politics is limited to a government that is, shall we say, a little rough around the edges.  But I couldn’t help but notice that everyone, including the fiery Scottish National Party, all seemed so down-to-earth.  The nationalists started convincing me with their arguments, and then those who are committed to a United Kingdom were equally persuasive with their counter-arguments.  Everyone seemed rational. 

I was amazed to discover that even though the governing party – the “separatists” – have a minority government and could be brought down at any time, the opposition parties refrain from doing so out of a sense that, as one of their parliamentarians put it to me, at the moment “it wouldn’t be fair.”  I don’t think that would be the case in some countries.

(As for my article about the Scottish independence movement, it should be out in a little while.)

Photo by Flickr user Subberculture used under a Creative Commons license.

I just got back from my meetings at the Scottish Parliament.  I’ll write more about the substance of them tomorrow, but for now I’d just like to share one piece of advice.  If you ever find yourself in the Scottish Parliament, meeting with members of the Scottish National Party, DO NOT CALL THEM ‘SEPARATISTS.’ 

Despite the fact that the whole foreign press calls them that, and the fact that they readily speak of separating from the U.K., they apparently get quite irate if the term is used.  Especially one of them.  Especially if you accidentally do it repeatedly.  This does not get an interview off to a good start, nor set the stage for a friendly conversation.

I’m in Scotland for a few days, doing some work on both a long-term writing project and a short magazine piece.

For the latter, I’m going to the Scottish Parliament tomorrow for a handful of meetings with parliamentarians.  In case you’re not quite as up on Scottish politics as you once were (?), it’s an interesting time here.  The Scottish National Party, a separatist party, is in control of the government for the first time.  Strident nationalism tends to make me reflexively uneasy, but some of their arguments, evaluated on their merits, are not unconvincing.  At very least, one can see why, in this era of a robust European Union, the idea of the sub-union of the United Kingdom might seem anachronistic or redundant to some.

Then again, as a friend of mine quipped the other night, “That’s all well and good, but where exactly do they think they’re actually going to go?”

In any case, I imagine I’ll have more to say on all this tomorrow after spending the day at the parliament and talking to the two sides.